In all of my musings I have been wondering why it is that fashion week is important? Why do we care? Nominally we must care because we as consumers and aficionados of fashion look forward to the release of new design. And yet when one works in an artistic and hence emotionally driven medium it is rare that one can really pinpoint that arrival of the new. So what did I learn about the new this fashion week?

To Quote Shirley Bassey singing for Propellerheads:

They say the next big thing is here, that the revolution is near, but to me it seems quite clear that it is all just a bit of history repeating. There is fashion, there is fad, and the joke is rather sad that it is all just a little bit of history repeating.

Herbert Blumer proposed in the sixties a general theory of fashion that focused fashion as a process of historical continuity. New fashions are also in relation to others-one being built on top of one another. Fashion thus is always about modernity in that it is of the times...

And I didn't...until 2002, when I first laid eyes on Hamid Karzai, then interim leader of Afghanistan. I was taken with his charm and bravery, and smitten with his style. And I was not alone. He won praise from the House of Gucci for his green and white chapan -- a traditional Uzbek cape -- and ceremonial karakul hat. Karzai himself said, back then: "Everyone I meet asks me about my coats...When I addressed the UN Security Council, all the ambassadors wanted one."

He's already rescued the ladies (with help from the U.S. military) from having to wear burqas: Can a more free and chic Afghanistan remain only a dream?

As this article recounts, Queen bootlegs were popular for years in Iran, and the government eventually relented and allowed a cassette of Queen's Greatest Hits to go legit. And how could religious leaders justify this? By providing an explicitly Islamic message to Bohemian Rhapsody. The Iranian cassette includes a pamphlet with liner notes that

tells Queen fans that Bohemian Rhapsody is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil.

On the night before his execution he calls God in Arabic, "Bismillah", and so regains his soul from Satan.

So you see, it's a hymn!

In fact, one of the greatest benefits that the sometimes strange couturiers generate is maintaining perceived value -the retail price levels of apparel. As the haute designers charge ever more obscene prices, it makes our prices seem much more reasonable in comparison....

The presence of passementerie and paillettes at the fall collections this week may be more indicative of a need to distinguish ever-more-expensive designer items from fast fashion knockoffs at H&M, Zara, and the like...

This show captures everything I love about design.

Color, volume, texture, layering, mixing divergent references and best of all the collection always looks even better in the store than is does in runway photos.

Marc Jacobs has earned every bit of respect he has garnered in his career, and he still relatively young. So what has to happen for us to begin considering that he just may be the most important designer America has ever produced?

Generally, the most avant garde pieces seem eccentric to all but the most fashion forward among us, so what's a girl to do? Tame your look to appeal to the masses? Move to NYC or Tokyo, where no one will bat an eye? Or just accept the confusion of the civilians as part and parcel of being the most fabulous one in the room?

Act One, Scene One. The curtain it raises on the procession of the damned, who shuffle across the stage paying obsequious homage to the Lord of Flies.

First, the aged crones in thrall to evil..

What can one talk about while waiting for Lagerfeld? Lagerfeld, of course. “Karl has the energy of . . . what? Twenty-five thousand Turkish elephants!” says socialite Anne Slater, wearing her big blue glasses and grinning up a storm. “He’s magnetic and powerful. I think he’s absolutely, devastatingly attractive.”

Then, the young slatterns, proud of their debasement…

“Karl is a genius!” exclaims Lindsay Lohan.

Next, the handmaidens of Asmodeus, eager to share their shame..

“Karl is the one person that makes me shy,” says throaty Bungalow 8 owner Amy Sacco.

Then, the greater demons, odious, cloven hooved beings who dwell in the lower rings of Hell…

I want people to hear my experiences if only to disabuse them of the notion that getting into the tents will be a magical experience. The only reason it seems exciting is because it is exclusive. You want access because you can’t have it. I don’t even have particularly good access, just a badge that gets me in the door. I can fight my way into many shows but too often the attitude has been we will just watch it from the monitor. To which I say no dice.

I began to have the fancy of the tent as a shifting distending entity, distorted by the shapes of elbows and heads pressing against its straining seams, like a thousand Alices had eaten their cakes and were sprouting ever-longer limbs. I waited for a giantess' foot or a seven-foot nose to tear through one of the walls, but it never did. This flight of imagination should have been my first clue. The wicked west wind carried some feverish spore or beastie deep into my lungs, and today I have an unsettled cranium and a painful wheeze like a fourteen year-old model before her morning's first cigar.

Unless duly authorized, any use, directly or indirectly, through any intermediate or not, with or without charge, in any part of the world, specifically on the Internet, on CD-ROM and on any other multimedia networks and devices, of any images of all or any part of the collection presented in this show, including any images of the models appearing in this show, is strictly prohibited.

Not satisfied with mere legal warnings, Karl Lagerfeld deluged the audience with so many looks and silhouettes that knockoff artists couldn't select an iconic image from the collection. The next season, the designer received boos from photographers when he sent his looks for Chloe down a maze-like, difficult to shoot runway.

And a Jack & Hill reader writes in: "Call me cranky, but with the except of Manolo, most of The PM fashion bloggers have no clue about what they're looking at. They're very busy writing about how they're perceived, who've they've seen or met or waved to, the spectacle of the tents and not very much about the collections. I think the MSM fashion media is pretty safe from the blogger onslaught. "

Oh, it's not as bad as all that, is it? Here Omiru is busy telling us what's coming down the runway. And The Fashionable Kiffen has some trend analysis (keyword: volume).

The Sartorialist has the best candid backstage images around.

Miss Meghan has abandoned the shows in favor of a tour of boutiques in Manhattan's meatpacking district, where the real celebrity/editor action is, while Andrea Tung takes you on a knitting-shop tour of the island.

A Dress A Day breaths a sigh of "finally, something I really like" here.

Tribunal of Good Taste has posted a series of fashion polls.

If you want to put your own two cents in, Glam.com has just now put up a public discussion forum dedicated to the shows.

Oh yes--and check back here tomorrow, when we'll have video blogging courtesy of Fashion Tribes.

And just remember, if it didn't suck just a little, it wouldn't really be blogging...