Editor’s Note:  Introducing The Etceterist, the byline for the new style-world infiltrator for wowOwow.com, who will post deliciously anonymous weekly musings vis-à-vis the glamorous goings-on in the worlds of fashion and culture. Who is The Etceterist? Some may guess, but we prefer to stay silent, except to pronounce that there is no more inside insider in the worlds of art, beauty, society and culture. 

Despite its popularity these days as a cultural signifier, it is still very fashionable among women more oriented to gravitas than grosgrain to say they do not give a hoot about fashion. In this wobbling world, there is so much else of such great importance to concern oneself with! Fashion, they say, reminds them of Barbie, the doll who, by the way, will be 50 in 2009. So this is what 50 looks like? Mattel is planning a year’s worth of festivities and promotions from clothing to Barbie spa and beauty products.

Well, yes, of course, all of the above reasons against fashion may be true but The Etceterist — lovely to meet you, too — begs to differ. You have to get dressed anyway, don’t you? So you might as well have a lark. Style is the etcetera of life, and thank goodness for it: the lighter side. What was it Karl Lagerfeld said recently? Oh, yes: “I never make serious conversation. It bores me to death.” Recounting his experience of being photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Karl quoted the great photographer telling him that she needed “three days with you to see what’s behind.” And Karl responded: “Annie, you’re wasting your time. Look at what you see. There is nothing else.”

With fashion week landing in a matter of days in New York, a brief summary of some recent news from this other planet, plus coming attractions and trends, might be useful. Hemlines? From Prada, Armani, Marc Jacobs, among others, to the knee if not right down to the floor; the operative word, down, concurring with Wharton economist George Taylor’s “hemline index” which says that when the economy goes south, so too do skirt lengths. Politics? The media is still walking on gilded splinters waiting to institute its inevitable fashion war between Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama. Watch for it in a matter of days while the candidates’ sartorial contrast somehow escapes unexamined. In Italy, Father Antonio Rungi is organizing a beauty contest … for nuns. Titled “The Sister Italia 2008,” instead of bathing suits the commodity here is “inner beauty.” Father Antonio says the pageant will prove that there is more in this world than “just the plasticized beauty you see on television. There is also such a thing as a chaste ideal, which comes from the heart and the soul, and has a beneficial effect on those who come into contact with it.” Monastery Barbie, anyone?

Closer to home, the American fashion saint Isabel Toledo kicks off fashion week on September 3 at the Rainbow Room with a luncheon in her honor given by the FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) Couture Council. What to wear? According to the September issues of Vogue, W, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle, some of the compelling trends in the fall collections are: dresses, especially the little black or berry-red dress worn with bold accessories, country tweeds à la Carolina Herrera’s and Michel Kors’s collections, romantic blouses à la Lanvin and Oscar de la Renta, tuxedos, but not for luncheon, loose jerseys from Donna Karan and loads of knits from Ralph Lauren, among other ideas.

How to afford high fashion prices? Amortize? Isn’t that the trendy person’s synonym for denial? And there always are designers’ less-expensive lines: Emporio Armani. Rei Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons collection for H & M. Vera Wang’s Lavender label. On the home-products front, fashion-editor-favorite John Derian, whose East Village store is the chicest of the chic, is launching his first collection for Target.

No one will ever accuse Karl Lagerfeld or Calvin Klein or Miuccia Prada etc. of being Robin Hoods, but the fashion world, the second largest industry in New York after finance — maybe given the woeful state of finance, it is now number one — means well. To wit, mid-month some 15 City Harvest trucks will be outfitted in the earthy apple and purple colors from DKNY’s fall campaign. Including a special fundraising necklace, the fashion brand is putting its muscle behind City Harvest’s nonprofit food rescue program in a big way this fall. Go to DKNY.com for more information.