Chanel finds itself at a crossroads following Virginie Viard’s abrupt departure, as a giant empty cage at its Grand Palais show symbolizes the current creative void.

From the hoopla it looked like a movie premiere, but the star was a bag.

Marc Jacobs’ runway show in the grand, marbled lobby of the New York Public Library came exactly a year after his previous show in the same venue — the first in-person runway show since the pandemic had shut things down for a couple of seasons.

In another unmistakable sign that New York is coming back to life, Marc Jacobs celebrated a long-awaited return to in-person fashion shows when he presented his fall collection Monday evening at the grand Fifth Avenue branch of the New York Public Library.

MILAN – Fashion is off the hamster wheel, taking a deep breath that is allowing some freshness to seep into the once relentless cycle. “It is so weird thinking about fashion, and the kind of hamster wheel of fashion, and how we never had a break and always complained about it,’’ Marc Jacobs said during a Milan Fashion Week video chat with Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons post-digital show. Milan Fashion Week of mostly womenswear previews for next fall and winter wrapped a nearly all-digital edition on Monday. Only one designer — Daniel Del Core, marking his brand's debut — held a live runway show for a small number of guests. Milan designer Francesca Liberatore had planned an extravagant show in a Milan theater with holographic effects, but decided against it in solidarity with theater creatives who can't occupy that space.

FILE - The Christian Siriano collection is modeled during Fashion Week in New York on Feb. 6, 2020. With no celebs in the front row, no paparazzi chasing models down the streets, no stiletto-heeled crowds and no live shows at all, is there even a point to doing Fashion Week in 2020? Is there even a point to doing New York Fashion Week in 2020? “Ultimately fashion is a business, and Fashion Week is a platform for designers to do business,” says Steven Kolb, chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which organizes the semi-annual event. But this is really, really seismic.