In the midst of New York Fashion Week—between the Armani news, the deluge of Natalie-Erik schadenfreude, the Ssense bankruptcy, and the Saks fears—investors were dreaming of a recovery in the luxury market. I, too, believe in fashion’s ability to seduce—and that we are programmed to spend money. But success is going to be more difficult to engineer than it has been in the past. “I don’t see a single macro trend—political, financial, or otherwise—that stabilizes things,” one of my most trusted sources said the other day. “Fashion is moving back to a meritocracy, where the brands that nail it will succeed, but everyone else will continue to flail.”