As NYC's Fall Fashion Week draws to a close, what did I learn? Not much. I'd compare it to speed shopping for snowmobiles to take back home to the family's date plantation in Dubai. Obviously, there's an unbridged gap between the description of what's being shown on the runways and what can be learned by the uninitiated. Maybe I should have spent more time watching "Project Runway". Or any time, really. Maybe I should have learned to sew so I could dissect just how much artistry goes into the construction of clothes. Sadly, the solitary, mandatory "home ec" class I endured in 8th Grade slipped away like an unsecured knot of invisible thread. Still, I looked for themes - things that might seem to carry through from designer to designer. One thing I thought I was seeing was a strong Chinese theme - Jason Wu's buzz thanks to his Michelle Obama connection at least echoed a bit in what I perused early on. But then I realized I was probably only channeling the single actual live fashion show I saw when I'd traveled to Beijing last September. No, I'm not able to take that leap of pretension into "trend forecasting". Although that term - "trend forecasting" and the concept that some people make their bones doing so - did get me thinking. In that pursuit, looking at fashion is no different than obsessing over any public art form. Yes - I said it. Fashion is, quite surely, art. From that admission, however, the concept crosses over for me into a vast, shared space with all the other forms of discourse and commerce. If you'll indulge me - in this way of thinking...fashion is literature is the Westminster Dog Show is political horse-race handicapping. Because for every person who is deep in the process of doing the job, there are countless minions of others dissecting and trying to "trend forecast" what is being created or shown or discussed. And like that vast majority of other forecasters, I can no more say what trend will move from the runway to the Street than why a flouncy little Pekingese could ever beat a Dalmatian or an Irish Setter. Or why Rick Santorum in a sweater vest makes any more sense than Mitt Romney in a tattersall shirt. In other words, I'm done reading fashion's tea leaves. At least until I learn to securely anchor some of those buttons I'm currently missing.

I've never been to Fashion Week. Any of them, anywhere - New York, Milan, Paris, Dubuque, Ulan Bator. Not that I'm unfashionable. I'll happily brag that my wife relies heavily upon me to make the call between prospective outfits she's contemplating. My skills are largely those of a fashion idiot savant, with the equivalent assurance of any former speechwriter currently working as a pundit for FOX News. But I'm now paying more attention thanks to my research for Pelting Out. Would I have gone to Anna Wintour's brainchild shoppanal - Fashion's Night Out 2011 - last night in NYC? Yes, I think I would have braved the crowds. Not for the Bieber, mind you. For the actual nuts and bolts of the fashion. It would have given me at least a slightly more hands-on sense of what may be tried on at China's equivalent Fall fashion features later this month. Oddly enough, I expect to see some of that public rendering when I head to the Far East a week from today. Because the only thing more fascinating but way out of my comfort zone than going to some gala fashion soirees in New York or Europe is to do so in a rapidly developing nation. Add in some of tangential thinking I've been doing, thanks in part to a NYTimes piece on China's appetite for collecting Western ar t and you've got a case of cultural consumption leapfrog that's wonderfully mind-boggling. If you're intrigued by what this might all mean and what I might bring to bear on the discussion, check back. Real observations - not just these hints of what might be upcoming - are promised in easy to consume chunks of cheese on an unpretentious platter.

Until the next page turns...may your own daughter's new soccer season's schedule not parallel your own NFL team's broadcast schedule.