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Ralph Lauren, spring 2016.Credit Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times

It’s been a slow ride on the fashion merry-go-round this week.

Five days after Givenchy’s triumphant 9/11 show on a pier in downtown New York, there we were again, this time in a tunnel under World Trade Center Plaza, for yet another collection from a brand owned by the French conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Whoa! Déjà vu. We’re almost back where we began.

What’s that all about?

Officially, the debut DKNY show of Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, otherwise known as the men behind the hip label Public School, who were named back in April to design the contemporary brand that Donna Karan built.

Symbolically, about a whole lot more, because since after Mr. Osborne and Mr. Chow took the helm, Ms. Karan retired, LVMH “suspended” the Donna Karan main line, and DKNY became the de facto standard-bearer of the company.

To all intents and purposes, what happens at DKNY now defines the image of a house that once defined New York fashion.

The decision to hold the first show of the new era in an arm of the Oculus, the underground shopping mall and food court being developed in the part of the city formerly known as ground zero, was a direct bid for the soul of the city (if not as original as it originally may have seemed). The combination of tragedy and capitalism suggested some interesting possibilities. Show us something we don’t expect.

Or not.

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DKNY: Spring 2016 RTW

CreditRegis Colin Berthelier/Nowfashion

The DKNY that Mr. Osborne and Mr. Chow introduced was perfectly nice, quite respectful of Ms. Karan’s history, tightly conceived and almost entirely bland. Playing on two basic New York sartorial clichés — the white T-shirt/button-down and the pinstriped jacket — they sliced and diced and deconstructed them into new-look bodysuits-cum-rompers (they had shorts instead of leotard bottoms) that popped out of pleated skirts left open at the side, hence rendering a once-transformative garment into a styling trick.

Asymmetry was everywhere. A nod to one of Ms. Karan’s famous ad campaigns was silk-screened on a coat. The best pieces layered superfine ribbed-knit tank dresses over white shirting, like grime over a city street, or silk-screened a patchwork of suiting fabrics onto white twill. There was almost no color.

Out of 41 looks, one was blue, and one was white with a blue print; the rest were “cement” and “charcoal,” black and white and navy.

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There’s often a sense, when new designers arrive at a much-loved brand, that the first season should be a judicious shuffling in; that change should come softly, so as not to alienate or offend those who still carry a torch for the time before. Yet DKNY has been aesthetically adrift for a while now. (What did it stand for, other than work- and party wear priced for a girl who dreamed of getting her first big break in the big city?)

And without the main line to dictate their course, Mr. Osborne and Mr. Chow had an almost unprecedented chance to reinvent accessible New York dressing. That instead they played it coy instead seems like the most wasted opportunity of what has been a surprisingly low-energy week.

“It’s tough out there,” said Millard S. Drexler, chief executive of J. Crew, during that brand’s presentation replete with gingham, stripes and madras separates. True, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to ratchet down the energy.

Yet black and white have dominated the collections; color feels like a thrill ride. Between an elongated cream vest, barely fringed at the side, and an onyx strapless jumpsuit, a dress in tangerine Fortuny-pleated organza crisscrossed over itself at Boss Women, using its potential transparency as a tease, made a big impression; ditto a petroleum-toned cocktail sheath in chevrons of beaded fringe.

Ralph Lauren’s blue-and-white ode to an American in Biarritz, complete with cropped navy captain’s jackets, knit maillots, sweeping palazzo pants and parasol-striped cotton shirting gowns, qualified as a breath of fresh air.

Slide ShowRalph Lauren: Spring 2016 RTWCreditGuillaume Roujas/Nowfashion

This is one of the reasons Proenza Schouler is always a star attraction: The designers Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez have a lot of ideas, and they tend to come out like paintballs on the runway.

Splat! Here’s an off-the-shoulder white cotton dress — pretty, romantic, fresh — the fabric cinched aggressively tight at the neck and waist with black ribbon to expose the flesh underneath. Splotch! Here’s a flamenco ruffled crop top with high-waist toreador pants.

Slide ShowProenza Schouler: Spring 2016 RTWCreditNowfashion.com

Splat! Here’s an exaggerated fisherman’s-net dress sprouting feathers caught in every link. Splotch! Here’s an asymmetric crimson fil coupé column with ruffles cut in and fabric cut out, and enormous black Rorschach blots all around.

What do you see?

Explorations of the meaning of femininity and strength and power, perhaps, and the role of decoration; some successful, some not so much. Giant metallic pearls on a sheer silk chiffon dress with a strategically placed groin-girdling ruffle were a little silly; some of the cotton vests and trousers unflattering. But the ruffled columns that curved up the body, tracing a new topography, were terrific.

As were the gleaming cream and ivory bias-cut slip dresses from Francisco Costa at Calvin Klein, the deconstructed leather aprons dropped from chain-link straps atop satin shifts, and the two-tone floral prints — peonies photographed and abstracted into a blur, juxtaposed against English garden blooms — in contrasting shades of pearl and pewter gray.

Slide ShowCalvin Klein Collection: Spring 2016 RTWCreditRegis Colin Berthelier/Nowfashion

Also the shredded silk knits embedded with glints of gold chain worn with slouchy silk trousers; the black silk tuxedo jackets and tunics, seams picked out in white thread and then split hither and yon; the tufted sweaters and sequined leathers, and — well, there was more. Each look built on the other, constructing a new sort of coolly intelligent glamour. Finally (finally!), it was kind of a rush.

Turn and turn again.

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