PARIS — It is a telling detail that at fashion shows, critics and retailers tend to sit on opposite sides of the runway. Agreement on the merits or failings of any individual collection, or the fashion season as a whole, is as hard to come by in this world as accord across the aisle is in politics. A few collections manage the feat of pleasing everyone, but many others are critically beloved while impossibly unsalable, or till-ringingly commercial but poorly or begrudgingly reviewed.

With the men’s fashion season now past the halfway point, it is a fine time to take the temperature of the season. The international scrum of editors, journalists and retailers (and the usual few drop-in celebrities) have come and gone to London, Florence (for the Pitti Uomo fair) and Milan and have arrived in Paris for the final leg of the twice-yearly tour, packing and repacking their oversized and often overweight luggage four times.

It is a transitional moment. Brands are grappling with whether to adopt a see-now, buy-now schedule of showing just before product arrives in stores. Several are between named designers (Calvin Klein Collection, Salvatore Ferragamo, Berluti) and others are not on the schedule, having combined their men’s shows with their women’s or elected to take a season off to give their new designers time to prepare (Burberry, Ermenegildo Zegna, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent).