“I can’t even remember what Chloe looked like before Phoebe Philo,” said Lauren Goldstein Crowe this afternoon, but I still envision when Stella had it, and Karl Lagerfeld, too.

Truthfully, it always had an Almost Famous vibe of rumpled, half-kicked girlhood that swished when it walked and kissed with Chapstick.

Not anymore. Paolo Melim Andersson’s third collection for the house (if we include resort) was sharply geometric and slightly see-through, with gauzy blouses covering triangle skirts, slightly shiny and printed with pink and blue shapes. Marimekko, grown up and taking architecture classes.

“Is this bad?” I wondered out loud. “Or do we just have a rigid expectation that Chloe should always be pretty?”

And do new designers have a responsibility to reference the history of their older fashion house? And would anyone pay $900 for a ripstop nylon jumper? And will anyone play anything but M.I.A. on the runway this season?

Across the row from us, Courtney Love slid down her sunglasses, which were bedazzled (yes, really), and shook her head.

I couldn’t tell if it was telepathy, or if she just had to sneeze.