helluva town.

The simple, no-frills dress was the big news of New York Fashion Week. And what a dull week it was. Nothing happened. No seismic shifts in proportions, no dramatic swings of mood. I found it about as exciting as changing a flat tire on a deserted stretch of the Taconic Parkway on a boring afternoon.

But, of course, a man of fashion wouldn't be worth his salt if he couldn't find something fun and entertaining and stylish to applaud amid all the hustle and bustle and flashbulbs. For me, that shining light, if you can believe it, was the suite I borrowed for my overnights: the Bottega Veneta rooms in the St. Regis hotel on Fifth Avenue, designed by the talented Tomas Maier. Maier-who at Bottega did such wondrous shapes for fall, like that gorgeous silk-faille balloon dress-invited me to be the first-ever guest to check into his freshly appointed decor.

The whole luxurious thing is done in subtle tones of taupe, with verdigris silk-shantung walls. Not a surface was left untouched, from the bark leather intreciatto-weave BV trash bins and letter boxes to the sand-colored suede curtains that framed the long double French windows looking out onto the Fifth Avenue fashion parade. "It is very elegant, this suite of rooms," said my friend Manolo Blahnik, who elevatored down from his own room upstairs at the St. Regis to meet the beautiful Rachel Roy and her husband, Mr. Damon Dash.

I had a great time in my room. I rowed determinedly upstream in that river of nonchallenging shows on my new Concept2 rowing machine, which the workmen installed at the foot of my glamorous Bottega Veneta bed. (Update for those of you keeping track of my dietary progress: I invested in the Concept2 as a reward for having lost another fifteen pounds on my new squash-and-rowing regimen!)

But I digress. Back to the shows.

cotton club chic

Yes, the moments of excitement were few and far between this season. But those few highlight shows twinkled all the brighter for it.