Frock You Very Much

Don’t expect to see old man Kenneth Cole up at the tents. “I’m not doing a show this time,” Mr. Cole said the other night. “I feel numb.” And why? “The ending of summer and the beginning of”—a sigh—“fashion.”

“We’re taking kind of a one-season break, and we’re gonna just focus on—kind of focusing the collection on—getting it right for retail rather than the runway.” He was accompanied by wife Maria Cuomo Cole at Jazz at Lincoln Center, where Elton John played a gig beneath a light show intense enough to dissolve your corneas. “I’m doing private shows for the editors,” Mr. Cole said. “It’s more personalized. It’s not really about the models on the runway.”

The catwalk is so widespread now—music videos, reality TV—that it’s become walked-on as a metaphor.

“I think it needs to be reinvented,” Mr. Cole said. “I don’t think it’s tired; I think people love to see it. But it’s creating drama to the business end that thrives on it. But, uh, it still needs to be validated.”

Does the pressure of Fashion Week sap the creative energy out of a designer and his team?

“I don’t think it saps the creative energy out of it; it just maybe misdirects it sometimes. But it’s all good. But at the end of the day, I’m not sure it quite all gets directed to the consumer. So we’ll probably end up going back to it next season.”

But as for this one: On Saturday, Sept. 9, Alexandre Herchcovitch clasped the hand of one of the models who had just displayed his latest collection and took to the runway. He did it a little differently—the girl whose hand he held was not the one at the front of the lineup, or the back, but somewhere in the middle. It was a small gesture by Mr. Herchcovitch, but one that did not go unnoticed by scrutinizing fashionistas.

“It’s hard to be an individual in the tents,” said a buyer. “He’s just trying to mix it up.”

He did. His line for spring ’07 was Inca meets Scottish Highlander, with a dash of military. There was fine beading on the jackets and shorts inspired by Ndebele patterns found in Southern Africa. The boots looked like something Gaudi whipped up. Mr. Herchcovitch, a Brazilian, would be considered an up-and-coming designer, and this year a fair share of his contemporaries are showing their collections in Bryant Park. Whether in or out, they are doing their best to keep a free spirit alive.

“There’s this one thing: the tents,” America’s Next Top Model’s Nigel Barker had said backstage at the Form show on Friday evening. “It’s such a press event, as opposed to: ‘Do you know? Are you in the know?’ Which is a part of the snobbism of the fashion industry, but also a part of the fashion of the fashion industry—like, ‘Did they send you an invitation? Are you going to this odd little place in some odd little district of Paris, or Milan or London? Do you know the street?’ Here it’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s the tents. If you hang out outside long enough, you’re going to get in.’”

Well, almost, Mr. Barker. New York has its odd little places where fashion happens. On Saturday afternoon, the menswear-design collective Loden Dager held a reception out in Far West Chelsea to introduce its new collection. The models stood atop block pedestals while visitors sipped drinks from the bar.

“All of the flesh and all of the image is on display in the space,” said architect Charles Renfro—a High Line designer—in the D.J.-booth-slash-dressing-room. “And it’s hot.”

Beside him, post-pubescent swimmers’ bodies slipped in and out of distressed cords and cotton shirts. Mr. Renfro couldn’t take his eyes of the display. “New York’s all about business,” he said. “I don’t talk about sex, because I’m a businessman.”

What about objectification?

“Well, it’s a really great lesson for people,” said Loden Dager designer Paul Marlow, whose facial hair is more ZZ Top than Tom Ford. “When they go up and start looking at the model and looking at the clothes, the model looks back. He’s not staring off into space, walking in one direction and coming back. He’s looking back at you, and you have to interact. Or you have to face that in yourself and just go for it, like ‘O.K., I’m objectifying you—let’s go.’”

Objects! “You know, I have bosoms,” said Ivana Trump, settling into her seat at Marc Bouwer earlier that day. “Nobody’s complaining. But I have to be careful of those things which, if you do not wear a bra, you cannot have some kind of support in it. The corsets are O.K., but one of those little blouson things I have to be careful of.”

Mr. Bouwer didn’t quite comply. He sent out cutaway maillots with barely enough strap to contain the well-endowed. But there were also stunning evening dresses cut on the bias with generous trains: watch your heels with those numbers.

“I’m trying to find out if the Marc Bouwer that’s showing—is that him?” asked Apprentice season 5 winner Sean Yazbeck. He took a glance at the program. “No, it’s someone else then. I know a clothes designer from London called Marc Bouwer; I thought it was the same chap.”

Yes, yes, anyway! What was he wearing? “Zara, Zara, Diesel, and I got these”—the shoes—“in Nieman Marcus; I don’t know where they’re from.”

Kai Kuhne used to belong to the iconoclastic design gang asfour. They used to all sleep in the same bed, get into knock-down-drag-out brawls with each other opposite stunned clients in restaurants, make and wear futuristic garments only a Solid Gold dancer could carry off.

Mr. Kuhne has been on his own for over a year now, under the label Myself, and on Sunday night he showed his new collection. It was clean, sophisticated, beautiful. Mr. Kuhne himself looked nothing like his former self: He wore a blue cotton shirt with Levi’s. His hair was preppy short and neat. He did look a tad exhausted.

“I’m a little more relaxed; I’m a little bit more focused and confident. I don’t know—I think I’m just getting old,” he said. Then he turned to greet his parents, who’d come from Germany for the show. Parents, even!

Powder, Mr. Kuhne’s snow-white pit-bull mix, whom he has had since the wild days, swaggered through the crowd backstage, flogging legs with her happy tail.