REPORTERS NOTEBOOK: The Szish Dish -- New York Fashion Week

Sept. 11, 2006 — -- Of all the chaos, beauty and drama the fashion industry generates, the seemingly most glam event of all, New York fashion week, is really just a trade show.

The twice-annual affair is about the business of selling clothes, or that new fragrance or line of sunglasses. The styles that catch the eyes of editors and buyers will be the ones that end up in your favorite shops next season (hence, the six-month lead time).

Friday marked Fashion Week's official kickoff as it showcased designs for spring/summer 2007. In addition to the Twiggy models, creamy hues and delicate, feminine details spotted on the runways, there were, of course, plenty of celeb sightings just off the runways: a demure Carmen Electra at BCBG and an angelic Emmy Rossum at Phillip Lim (who told me she was already lusting after the white coat accented with rosettes). Celebs, a front-row fixture at the runway shows, help get a designer's name in the press. In exchange, they get first dibs on red carpet get-ups.

Despite close encounters with Hollywood A-listers and exclusive previews of all the clothes we'll be wearing next March, the weekend was really only a warmup -- spring training for the spring '07 collections.

Among the sartorially-obsessed, Fashion Week truly begins with the Marc Jacobs show, traditionally held on the first Monday night of the seven-day event. Year in and year out, Jacobs' show is the one we wait for. Literally. His presentations have been known to get under way up to an hour-and-a-half late.

The 43-year-old Jacobs -- who was lauded in this weekend's Wall Street Journal as "the single most influential designer in the United States" -- heads a veritable empire. He designs his namesake label, the more affordable Marc by Marc Jacobs line, and is also the mastermind behind Louis Vuitton's ready-to-wear collections.

Jacobs not only operates in the glare of the industry's spotlight but under a paradox: He bucks the mainstream trends, only to ultimately dictate what will become the next mainstream trend. He delivers the unexpected -- not in a manic, unwearable way but in an intelligent manner that challenges the existing aesthetic.

Jacobs creates what we don't think we want to see; we often walk out of his shows shaking our heads, thinking he's finally gone too far. And sure enough, a few days later, we're convinced it's the most brilliant collection we've ever seen.