When Dressing the Future Means Skipping the Present

The lights projecting gridlike patterns along the High Line were digital-monitor green, and smoke was pumping out over the walkway. On the soundtrack, a piano was crashing out a melody; soon, an electronic thump took its place.

It was 9 p.m., in the 12th hour of the sixth day of New York Fashion Week, and the future, such as it was, had arrived.

The setting, said the explanation accompanying Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne’s new DKNY show, was “Neo SoHo.” (The part of Neo SoHo was played by Chelsea.) You can imagine such a place: a Wi-Fi wonderland that counts your steps and reorders your groceries. Every Starbucks takes Bitcoin, and every store is a Starbucks.

Mr. Chow and Mr. Osborne, who were appointed to DKNY in April 2015, took a modishly dystopian view, one that seemed to be the theme of the night. (Rag & Bone’s show, an hour earlier, likewise seemed set in some digital dystopia, though the collection itself skewed softer and blander.)

DKNY’s tailored jacket of old — clothes for workingwomen — had been cinched and stiffened into a kind of sexy, robotic carapace. (No need for a shirt.) Cotton sweaters dangled sleeves that extended long past the models’ hands, as the current styling trend dictates. (No need for a hand.) Military-style parkas with pockets for essentials or munitions — the wearer’s choice — were made in tulle.