I’ve noticed a strange undercurrent in social media commentary about fashion this season: a deep well of empathy for the client.

In fashion, the client is the most mysterious and significant presence in the whole machine. Most of us interact with runway fashion by looking at show pictures or watching green screen commentary. Maybe we’ll buy a tube of lipstick or a pair of shoes or a handbag. But the client is looking to a brand like Dior, Celine or Chanel to create their wardrobe. If reports of the billion-dollar revenue streams of the world’s biggest fashion brands are to be believed, clients must be everywhere. And yet they are not: Very few people can afford designer clothes these days, because the stuff has gotten more expensive as wage growth has stalled and wealth accumulates among a smaller number of people.

The client, therefore, takes on a character both formidable and invisible.

Obviously, the client is important. When Maria Grazia Chiuri started at Dior in 2016, the fashion industry (editors, reporters, stylists) scratched their heads over her collections. But then we began hearing that the client loved them. The same happened at Saint Laurent when Hedi Slimane joined in 2012: Critics claimed the clothes were underwhelming, but they flew off the racks. Slimane’s ability to sell is now one of his most prized qualities, in addition to his talent as an image maker. The client can help a designer without much to say keep their job; that was the case at Dior, for example, when it was clear many seasons ago that Chiuri had little gas left in the tank.

But now, fashion conversation seems to have developed a kind of stan relationship with the client. I’ve seen this most frequently in critiques of Jonathan Anderson’s Dior: What, among these experimental dresses and kooky hats, will the client do?!

(For a reality check, you should read Emilia Petrarca’s reporting on how shoppers in Milan felt about the new creative directors.)

Like any reporter who’s covered this stuff in and out for years, I talk often with clients and shoppers. (I also visit stores and talk to sales associates.) I can’t proclaim to be an expert on client thinking, because that is only a small portion of what I take into consideration when evaluating a collection or a brand’s broader success. As a critic, my position has always been, firmly, that a designer’s job isn’t merely to do what sells. A brand like Dior or Chanel is so enormous, with such large coffers, that it is better for the greater cause of creativity for designers to do something daring. And those brands are so big that, no matter who’s in charge, there will always be jackets and pencil skirts for people to buy. The most famous Dior client is Melania Trump — I doubt she looked at Anderson’s show at all, as I doubt she watched Chiuri’s very closely. I’m sure she’ll continue to buy Dior — and if she doesn’t, she’ll simply go to Dolce & Gabbana, which also cuts a terrific skirt suit.

Two things confound me about this sudden Client Commiseration Crisis.

One, we act as if these people (and they’re mostly women, which I think is notable — because we find it very easy to say what women think, which is crazy) are going to fall down at the door of the Avenue Montaigne boutique if they can’t find a jacket or a shirt they want to buy at Dior. Women are not helpless creatures yoked to the whims of French fashion houses.

Buying expensive clothing is not the same as buying skim milk: If you don’t like the goods at one place, you just go to another. There are at least 10 fashion houses with couture ateliers that make extraordinary clothes with unbelievable craftsmanship.

(The other hilarious thing: Dior’s latest collection was filled with commercial stuff like blouses, jeans and miniskirts.)

Fashion, for all of us, is a source of pleasure. It’s not a necessity. Shopping is not a grind — particularly at the level of the client. At many couture houses, a client needs to spend an annual minimum (sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars) to maintain their status as a buyer. Believe me: If you want the couture dress or coat, or the handbag made in partnership with a blue-chip artist of which just a few were made — you will find something to buy.

Two: Where did these exacting ideas about what brands should look like come from? When did we decide we know exactly what Dior, Chanel or Celine should look like? And why is our measure of success for a collection whether it looks exactly like we expected it to look?

One of my least favorite fashion-criticism tropes is house codes. I don’t know what that means or why anyone cares, other than it being a byword for consistency — but the things that make, say, Celine consistent or Dior reliable are more subtle than silhouette or idealized customers. They’re a certain feeling and a level of craftsmanship — like the surprising lightness of a Dior bar jacket, or the casual perfection of Celine’s jeans, no matter the style.

I dread living in a world in which sameness is celebrated above creativity.

I’m sure many of you will disagree. So go on — tell me why I’m wrong!

AND ALSO

• I was not a fan of the new Balenciaga under Pierpaolo Piccioli. I did like Yohji Yamamoto, The Row and Schiaparelli, where I sensed what I call “warm-blooded chic.”

• Monica Hesse decodes our true crime obsession.

• And:

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