New York Fashion Week is upon us; it's off to an auspicious start with BCBG Max Azria's eye-catching, geometric fall/winter line.

The spring/summer 2014 for BCBG Max Azria — designed by Max and Lubov Azria — was shown yesterday in New York as part of New York Fashion Week. It provides a fresh and dreamy take on deconstructed menswear, featuring light fabrics in light colors. This season was heavy on crisp, masculine tailoring given a feminine…

New York Fashion Week has begun, and one of the first shows today was BCBG Max Azria. For Fall 2013, he showed deep colors: Black, oxblood, burgundy, cobalt, gray — in intricate geometric patterns, rich knits and flowing dresses. You'll also see perforated leather and lots of fur. Silhouettes were boxy, long, and…

It's not much! Filings made in association with a $3.75 million lawsuit include the earnings statement of one of the plaintiffs, the Polish supermodel Anna Jagodzinska. That ledger tallies gigs for American Vogue, Vogue Paris, and an H&M campaign.

In September of 2007, it was reported that of all the 101 shows that took place during New York fashion week, one third employed zero models of color. Since then, we've tried to track diversity on the runway every season.

Max Azria's shows tend to have a few defining features: a flirty aesthetic, a neutral palette of fabrics, and — for the past umpteen seasons — an almost all-white cast of models. Yesterday, I asked him why that is.

What makes a successful model? By what process is it decided that Coco Rocha will walk in 55 shows and grace the cover of Vogue Italia, while so many peers languish in models' apartments arguing about who used whose shampoo?

After tracking diversity on the runways for several seasons, we took off last September because we thought the fashion industry was finally coming to its senses. Models of color were getting booked! How disappointing, then, to tally this season's numbers.

Always an early major Fashion Week player, today's BCBG Max Azria show started just as the news of Alexander McQueen's death was spreading. And the clothes were, thankfully, somber*:
*And sorry for the confusion of the old show mixup!

And...it's started. The tents, the stars, the parties, the models, the hoopla, the absurdity, the agony, the ecstasy. Not the election season, silly, it's New York Fashion Week! Yes, this first show might be BCBG Max Azria, but we gotta work up to the big stuff. And even if it's not the most innovative line in the…