LA.com is making the rounds of Fashion Week shows and parties, and has a blog item up about a clueless designer trying to stop the L.A. Times writer Booth Moore from attending shows unless she promises not to be, you know, a fashion critic. In her coverage today in Weekend Calendar, Moore sort of disses the whole thing:

Maybe it was the soggy weather or the temporary power outage at the tents. But L.A.'s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, which runs through Friday, has yet to really get off the ground this season. At Smashbox Studios in Culver City, the same oddball celebrities are back (David Carradine?), along with the valet parking headaches. But despite the increasing glut of photographers chasing anyone winding out their 15 minutes of Warholian fame, the event doesn't feel as if it has grown in size or scope....

IMG, the event production firm that runs the shows here and in New York, has lowered the prices for designers to rent runway space. ("Our $4,000 space here is $42,000 in New York," says Fern Mallis, who oversees both events.) But even with the more affordable rates, this week's schedule has gaping holes. Some of L.A.'s brightest talents, who anchored last season's shows — including Calter, Michelle Mason and Magda Berliner — are not showing their spring collections. Others, such as Grey Ant's Grant Krajecki, are holding presentations off-site.

The fashion trade's boosters and hangers-on probably won't like Moore's take. Count British Vogue as a believer in L.A. Fashion Week: "It's fashion at its most glamorous."