The fall and winter seasons seem to bring out the party instincts, the primal urge to shimmer in the nightlight half-forgotten during the sultry summer months. Across the country the ballet, theater, and opera revive after a summer on the straw-hat circuit. The charity balls, benefits, and galas go full tilt nearly every night of the week. Clubs and discos are chic again, after a long, dry period in the eighties. Then there are the year-end office parties - the big dinner party for all employees and their spouses, the cocktail parties for each division, those small bashes fore every department, and a few spontaneous celebrations if the bonus check isn't a dud.
At home, the party spirit continues. The relatives pile in for Thanksgiving dinner. If they live close by, they 're back at Hanukkah or for Christmas brunch, and they'll drop by again to wish you a Happy New Year.
You get the picture. 'Tis the season to be jolly, with a lot of donning of gay apparel. The trick is to get through this social minefield without appearing to wear the same after-hour outfit more than once.
This decade, dressing up will not be sneered at as it was during the Carter era, nor will it echo the frosty formality of the Reagan Years. Dressing up now means looking great and feeling comfortable laced with a sense of humor.
For women, the base of many of this year's evening looks is the bodysuit, or variations thereof. Form the most elegant ball to the most casual bistro, you will find women in evening bodysuits. Designer Donna Karan serves up a bevy of black velvet stretch unitards worn under big oyster-colored organza shirts. Carolyne Roehm, known for her ball dresses, offers jeweled lace bodysuits with long brocade over skirts. Christian Lacroix's bodysuits are hand-painted masterpieces.
Lower on the price spectrum are Betsey Johnson's feather-trimmed velour bodysuits. Also in on the act are Gucci (the real and the blatant copies), with psychedelic printed tights and bodysuits looking as if they've been plucked from a sixties time capsule, and Hermes, putting a puckish spin on its matronly image by printing classic scarf patterns on sleek unitards.
The second-skin look transmutes into short holiday dresses with Lycra as the main ingredient. Pretty Woman looks abound in sleek, lithe silhouettes with soft shoulders and dangerous curves. Hemlines are thigh-high, and hot, high-voltage colors are a priority. For those with less than perfect figures, shapely bolero jackets or tiered or ruffled skirts on drop-waist, skintight torsos do the trick.
But there is more to the silhouette story. For those who can't or won't wear second-skin dresses, or for the truly trendy, the August couture shows offered some relief - the chemise. It literally touches the body only at the shoulders, dropping form there straight to the hemline. By the time you read this, chemise cocktail dresses stitched up by the fleet copyists of Seventh Avenue will be hanging side by side with the lean Lycra dresses.
Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, gold, and pearls are still a girl's best friends - even if they're not real. And this year, designers have lavished truckloads
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