Ruffles on cowgirls and blazers on sailors. Pantsuits in pinstripes right from a men`s tailor. Racy black lace with a come-hither zing, these are a few of American designers` favorite things for spring 1992.
As in Milan and Paris in past weeks, New York designers also fell in love with sheer fabrics, soft colors, a strongly defined waist, man-tailored shirt looks and a frosting of petticoats under short circle skirts.
”It`s a season of options, which is really what we want,” said Kal Ruttenstein, senior vice president of fashion direction at Bloomingdale`s.
What retailers really want is a cure for ”those sad recession blues,”
as designer Donna Karan put it in a song written especially for her collection, done to the optimistic beat of Johnny Mercer`s ”Accentuate the Positive.”
Whether the new looks for spring will chase away those cash-register blues remains to be seen, but designers such as Ralph Lauren, Karan, Isaac Mizrahi, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein and Adrienne Vittadini certainly gave retailers something to smile about.
Among the most talked-about, if overblown, options for spring is length, so let`s talk about this issue first. There is no issue. There is choice.
Designers-whether out of boredom, desperation to spur sales, a true creative urge or all of the above-are fiddling around with skirt lengths, but they`re hardly all playing the same tune.
”Long is of minimum consequence, but people who want to be advanced or different have a choice,” said Bloomingdale`s Ruttenstein.
In fact, short-that is, knee length and above-still dominates the market. This is much to the relief of many retailers. A miserable economic climate, fraught with layoffs, business closings and other bad news is probably not the best moment to propose a major fashion change to already store-shy customers. On the other hand, fashion, by its very nature, is about change and, after all, what goes up must come down. Almost all the designers here included some longer looks-midcalf to ankle-in their collections.
Historically, hemlines have almost always dropped or risen with the economy, so this development is not exactly a good omen.
Nonetheless, there may be comfort in the fact that most designers, even when they showed longer lengths, managed to skirt the issue by making the long look short.
Straddling the fence
They pulled this off in a number of ways: unbuttoning the front of a shirtdress thigh-high, wrapping a billowy sheer chiffon skirt over a romper suit and generally ventilating the fronts and sides of skirts with slits.
Ralph Lauren came up with one of the more inventive approaches and solved the underwear problem posed by transparent fabrics at the same time: he built a bodysuit into his long, sheer chevron-striped sheer Georgette dresses.
Isaac Mizrahi produced the most seductive solution, backwrapping his narrow, midcalf skirts with a sexy slice up the back.
This is all good news for those who have resisted the rising tide of hemlines in recent years.
But, despite all the hemming and hawing over hems, women have always been free to wear exactly what they want and generally do and retailers know it.
”I think the whole long-short thing is so much ado about nothing,”said Ellin Saltzman, senior vice president and corporate fashion director of Macy`s, Bullock`s and I. Magnin. ”The lady shouldn`t get confused and she shouldn`t throw away,” added Saltzman, noting that she thought many customers might consider a longer skirt for casual weekend wear.
In fact, many of the new longer skirts and dresses are done in sheer fabrics and romantic styles that lend themselves far better to an afternoon in the country or a night on the town than to a day at the office.
The lingerie look lingers
This holds doubly true for the continuing influence of lingerie on current fashion. Corsets, bras, slips and bustiers of every description, from lace to leather and silk burlap to wooden beads, packed the runways here. And, in many collections, the evening looks amounted to little more than mountains of black lace and tulle, alone or in often nasty Madonna-esqe combinations with flesh-toned or pastel silk and satin.
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In other words, Victoria`s secret is out, but it lost something in the retelling. In turning underwear into outerwear, there is a very fine line between sexy and scary and hardly anyone here managed to end up on the right side of it. Be warned.
Going to extremes
Interestingly, at the same time that lingerie looks are coming out from under cover, menswear looks are also flashing their pinstripes again.
From Greta Garbo and Katharine Hepburn to Annie Hall, the idea of women in men`s clothes long has been alluring and it`s working its charm once again. Donna Karan called it ”tailored sensuality,” while young designer Randolph Duke dubbed it ”cross-dressing.”
Whatever, the man-tailored shirt and vest showed up everywhere in endless variations and influenced everything from backless halter tops to evening dresses, organza bodysuits to snappy suits. Traditional menswear fabrics, such as shirting stripes, glen plaid and tweed, found themselves transformed into fragile chiffon and airy silk crepe.
In theory, the return of the pantsuit-one of spring`s strongest trends-is one of the signs of the current menswear resurgence. But, the best of the current crop of pantsuits are soft and curvy and, if that were not enough, the addition of a chiffon T-shirt or a lace bodysuit underneath is enough to put to rest any doubts about their femininity.
Waist watchers
The craving for old-style glamor, which also surfaced in the European collections, is also a fever here. More than a few collections made reference to film stars, from Leslie Caron to Susan Hayward, and translated this urge into looks that romanced the waist. Whether in fluffy party dresses that nipped in over flirty, petticoated skirts or pantsuits that curved in over wide, full pants, the waist was the focus.
Black, white and navy dominate a spring color palette balanced with soft shades of peach, pink, green and other fruit tones. Designers also like prints and plaids, most often mixing madras, stripes and florals in heady cocktails. When it comes to accessories, however, gold gleams brightest. In a season entranced by the waistline, gold belts buckle up a big category, led by chain versions that link together everything from pearls to leather disks, and coins to jelly bean-shaped stones.
Gold also glitters in large, drop earrings, bangle and chain bracelets and shoes. Many designers showed gold leather high-heeled sandals or strappy pumps, often in platform styles.
The loafer also lives for spring: Ralph Lauren did his as a golden platform, while Donna Karan did hers in black suede with a gold and pearl bar across the toe.