The Search: New Parts to Reveal

LONDON - Self-exposure, and how to mete it out, whether in dress or personal publicity, seems to be an issue on many designers' minds this season.

Quite a few seem to be frantically scanning women's bodies - like the QR code readers clutched by the gatekeepers at Somerset House, the venue for many shows here - looking for new parts to reveal.

The stretchy pants at Marios Schwab revealed, suddenly, a flash of the entire inner leg as the models wearing them came down the runway on Sunday. Sleeves on a white, nurse-like shirtdress were cut to reveal triangles of the shoulder. Dresses didn't know whether they wanted to be long or short. There were overskirts, underskirts, skirts that had possibly started their lives as scarves. ...

With Play-Doh teal running throughout, as well as stone, white and bands of black, Mr. Schwab's collection was competent and coherent, with echoes of Richard Tyler, at least to this observer, in some of the pantsuits. But there wasn't much in it to help distinguish him from the scores of others at fashion week, and live-streaming the show on a giant screen outside, as several labels are doing, didn't help.

How on earth can a designer develop when he has to sell himself 'in real time,' as they call it - although it's more like surreal time - to the mass snap judgments of Google Earth?

Margaret Howell, the veteran from Surrey, is on a plane above those grappling with this question. Her show took place at Rambert, the performance space of the contemporary dance company, and she took advantage of the occasion to advertise not hair unguents or mobile phones, but Open House London, the free architecture festival that takes place later this month. There seemed hope, there, to refortify eventually an I.Q. decimated by days of insistent public-relations messages and rapid-fire imagery.

Even the conservative Ms. Howell, though, is exposing midriffs these days, in bustiers worn with man-tailored trousers (for the professor who does Pilates, perhaps) and offering a dotted playsuit.

But the rest of the collection was neutral and conservative, for the same customer who follows Jil Sander everywhere she goes. Gray, navy and taupe predominated. Pullovers or cardigans were layered over demurely pleated, reassuringly below-knee skirts. Shoes were, of course, flat, and the only notable accessory was a bowler hat.

The Margaret Howell woman, whom I imagine as a sort of latter-day Katharine Hepburn, just doesn't care about what the latest must-have silly purse is (she'd rather put her essentials in pockets), and God bless her for that.

The crowd that had turned out at the City of Westminster College at 9 a.m. for Preen by Thornton Bregazzi, though, was ready for something splashier, and they weren't disappointed, though they might've been confused.

The collection started strong, with snappy, floaty striped dresses in nautical red, white and blue that one could imagine wearing on the deck of the Love Boat (Get me a vodka gimlet, Gopher!). Then the neon tribal prints - at least I think they were tribal prints - took over. To be followed by large watercolor flowers and hot-hued zippers.

Some dresses were banded, in the Hervé Léger manner, others suffered from the application of too much fringe. A tennis sweater's sleeves were belabored with bright stripes, and backpacks bobbed behind, seemingly stuffed with life's load.

A critic wants to cheer for the married couple, Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi, who started this label in a Portobello boutique with, they say, 'a passion for recycling' and an obvious spirit, but before they can become the next Biba some of their profuse notions have got to be relegated to the rubbish bin.