For Fall, Only Donna Karan Delivers

At Tuleh there were oversize balloon sleeves on voluminous fur coats, knife-pleated kimono dresses in frowzy purple prints and an overwhelming sense that Bradley had been designing in the dark.

And designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka -- who recently served as judges on "Project Runway" -- presented a collection that included a purple lamé gown. Their usual pitch-perfect understanding of glamour and entrance-making beauty seemed to have gone missing. And instead, one was left with a collection that seemed more interested in churning up attention from video stylists and magazines that like to show someone's ear and call it a portrait.

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The New York show schedule has become overrun with young designers, many of them bursting with technical expertise, enough financing to mount a show and enough creative energy to attract an audience. This was a season, however, when many of them seemed to be in an artistic slump.

Thakoon Panichgul floundered with a collection of lace-trimmed, nondescript black skirts and dresses.

Peter Som became obsessed with bubble skirts and bubble dresses and double-bubble gowns. Behnaz Sarafpour ended her show with a group of velvet party dresses with thick white crinolines that would make any woman look like her name ought to be Baby Spit and Chew -- batteries not included. Brian Reyes lost his way with a collection that included high-waisted trousers, egg-shaped dresses and other unconnected ramblings. Monique L'Huillier designed a collection that looked far too much like a watered down version of Yves Saint Laurent with its emphasis on lace, ruffles, bubbles and suffocating frills.

Too often, Zac Posen's shows are more celebrations of fame and charm than presentations of a finely developed design sensibility. But for fall, Posen turned his attention to tailoring, producing several well-cut, sexy trouser suits that aptly displayed his attention to line and detail. The accolades paid to Posen still enormously outweigh his ability. (In this collection, he included an enormous bubble gown in which the model could not walk.) But he is realizing that the mark of a great designer is understanding how a few powerful strokes can often be more than enough.

The fashion industry encourages designers to do more, to step more fully into the spotlight before they are ready. The industry desperately needs its next generation of star designers. There's enormous talent in the minor leagues. But whether it is ready for the limelight is questionable.

Perhaps the greatest evidence of this was in the runway presentation mounted by the label Trovata. The collection, created by four young Californians, is based on classic, preppy sportswear.

They have taken those basic shapes and played with them, adding eccentric details and flourishes, most notably mismatched buttons. Trovata received the second CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award. The prize comes with $200,000.

Based on the collection they presented Wednesday evening, it is inexplicable what recommended that triumph. They opened their show with a couple of yodelers. They sent one model out with a burly Saint Bernard dog. (This is typically fashion's equivalent of "jumping the shark.") What came between looked as though it had been pulled from the nearest Gap, J. Crew and L.L. Bean, the buttons ripped off and a new batch of mismatched ones stitched on. Cute. But not good enough to stake an industry's future on.