American fashion might have shed its reputation for staid, overtly commercially driven design, but in its place has grown an obsession with anything new and a hotly cultivated culture of hype.

The New York shows make themselves seem at once more populist than those in Milan and Paris and more glossy than those in London. They appear exclusive while being accessible — provided a designer has the basic $100,000 (£53,000) to put one on.

Many wangle it by securing sponsorship and funds through the combination of chutzpah and a well-stocked BlackBerry, and so it is that around a quarter of this week’s 142 shows will be the work of names not yet known to many.

Of course, there are the stalwarts — Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan — and those who are well known but still climbing: Roland Mouret, Proenza Schouler, Zac Posen.

Kimora Lee Simmons is not an ingenue nor an unknown name. She is the wife of the hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons and her clothing line, Baby Phat, is the female version of his longstanding range, Phat Farm.

The Baby Phat show on Saturday proved that, for the audience as well as designers, the capacity to stamp one’s feet and shout often gets one further than the ability to smile sweetly and the force of talent. The queue stretched for two blocks.

The clothes? Baby Phat is not about reinventing fashion’s wheel. It is about getting the look of Kimora herself: big hair, big furs (worn on the head as well as the body), big diamonds and an inflated sense of glamour and self. It is aggressively kittenish: the general rule is that anything bigger than hotpants, such as the evening dresses this time, must be clinging and plunging.

Catherine Malandrino, whose collection yesterday was floaty and flirty with pretty knitwear, is French-born but now an established New Yorker. It is safe to say that she has found more success here than if she had pursued her career in Paris.

Somewhere along the line it was decided that her look represents something attractively and intrinsically Gallic, and so her point of difference has become the crux of her success.

The latest member of the circus is Boy George, who has decided that he too must share his thoughts on fashion with the world. His line, B-Rude, was due to make its debut in the early hours of this morning and so verdicts remain to be reached, though already a Japanese chain is planning in-house boutiques and Patricia Field, the stylist for Sex and the City, has shown interest.

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