A RESORT collection used to be the equivalent of gazing at pictures of Bali when you lived in Kansas and the truck was broke. The clothes were for people who really went somewhere, who made plans that included special wardrobes.

But now, like so many other things once celebrated in a Slim Aarons photograph, resort has become an enormous commercial entity. Some two dozen designers offered collections over the last few weeks. These included well-known names like Oscar de la Renta and Givenchy but also new entrants like Sonja Rubin and Kip Chapelle, who showed modest silk dresses in sunset-colored mosaic patterns at their store in the meatpacking district, which gets international customers from the nearby Standard Hotel.

The number of resort collections — beefed up by European houses in New York to present premature spring clothes — is just an acknowledgment of the obvious: the customer desires to shop wherever she is.

With the seasons virtually collapsed into one nonstop season, consumers may not be able to notify a “preseason” Lanvin reversible shift — a classic twofer with frills hidden inside — from a resort Calvin Klein dress in velvet. And she has tiny reason to care regarding the difference because in reality she is getting the same thing: wearable clothing.