The good news is the return of everyday classics such as camel, day suits, skinny pants, trench coats, and ’40s tailoring. But where were the surprises? When the highlights of the season turn out to be fatigues (also deftly handled at Junya Watanabe) and fur coats (who didn’t do fur? And why was no one protesting?), well, one does get to wondering what’s up. It just made one reflect that Alexander McQueen is going to be more sorely missed than ever. His final collection of medieval gowns was the perfect requiem for the dream world it seems few others are intent on creating. In short: I’m all for wearing the practical, but if fashion doesn’t ever transcend the workaday, women are going to be bored.

Fur: (L to R) Chanel, Burberry Prorsum, and Oscar de la Renta

The whole experience also raised the question: Are fashion shows (egads!) ­démodé? Celebrities packing the front row feels more than a little passé. And though insiders forecast that a return to strictly business sans stars in the front row would be a relief—Marc Jacobs even declared celebrities uninvited at his show, but fair enough, his clothes always steal the spotlight anyway—it turns out the show really is more exciting with all the lights, cam­eras, and sparkling A-list glitterati. Simply put: There’s just a lot less to gossip about.

Leave it to Chanel, with its 265-ton iceberg trucked in from the upper reaches of Swedish Lapland, to save the day. That ice floe raised more questions about carbon footprints than commentary on Lagerfeld’s collection of fake-fur Chewbacca coats and sweaterdresses that, even without The Iceman Cometh set, warranted praise on their own merits. The move did generate 72 hours of back chat, however, thanks to a French-mannered freeze-out at the Grand Palais the night before, when in the same space but on the other side of the Chanel partition, YSL held its show of startling crisp bourgeois novitiates (though Stefano Pilati denied there were any religious references at play. Everyone is in denial!) to a frigid, blue-lipped audience. Oh, those French and their courtside contretemps!

Knits: (L to R): Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, and D&G

The day after Chanel, the chatter continued at Louis Vuitton: While guests sat ­inside a musty, bubble-shaped conser­vatory and a fountain sprayed water 10 feet in the air, onlookers marveled at the gossip that the iceberg had to be trucked back to Sweden because the French would not allow the Swedish ice to melt on French soil. Why hadn’t they just let Vuitton have it? Oh, those French and their environmental policies! Turns out the iceberg wasn’t banished, but no one knew where it was sent to melt. The least they could have done was make snow cones out of it as party favors.

New York had more spirit to boast of than her sister cities. Young designers Prabal Gurung and Joseph Altuzarra showed smartly shaped suits and coats that had just enough volume in offbeat places—arms and hips—to give them an ultrasophisticated vibe most women would appreciate, while Reed Krakoff debuted a line of chic utilitarian separates that in its most innovative moments played with the season’s newest floor-sweeping skirts. His models looked cool, calm, and collected: three c’s that equal an automatic A in my book.