Fashion: Goes Well With Woman
A generation ago, fashion indulged its subversive streak by all but retiring the dress, replacing that emblem of white-gloved propriety with a trouser suit. Now, in one of the industry’s classic turnabouts, it is the dress that seems subversive, resurrected by designers as a playfully insolent badge of cool.
In and around the tents of Bryant Park this month, when the spring collections were unveiled, New York tastemakers as disparate as Thakoon, Phillip Lim, Sabyasachi and Donna Karan thumbed a nose at suits and trousers, those enduring establishment uniforms, in favor of ballooning tents and breeze-catching trapeze dresses that recalled a gamine Mia Farrow.
Fashion, it seems, has embraced a style last popular in Mom’s day and, in the process, infused the dress business with a new vitality.
“Except for special-occasion pieces, the dress was dead in the water,” said David Wolfe, the creative director of the Doneger Group, which forecasts fashion and retail trends. “Now it’s back, and it’s booming.” Dress sales from January through July 2006, totaling more than $3 billion, rose by about 9 percent over the same period a year ago, according to NPD Group, the market research firm.
Buoyant as parachutes, the spring looks touching down on the runways did not arrive in a vacuum. Most were in fact interpretations of a trend already well entrenched as summer turned to fall.
“This season dresses are everywhere,” said Beth Buccini, an owner of Kirna Zabête in SoHo. “It seems like the trend that won’t die.” For fall, dresses by Stella McCartney, Chloé and Alice Ritter have sold briskly, Ms. Buccini said.
As early as a year ago, Phoebe Philo, then the designer at Chloé, set the pace when she issued her baby-doll dresses. The house continued in that spirit, adding draped and smocked versions for fall, many with the look of elongated tunics. Her peers were quick to fall into step.
Variations echo today at every level of the market. Bubble dresses have been showcased in the windows of Club Monaco, and more tailored versions make up a substantial portion of the business at H&M, said Jennifer Uglialoro, the fashion director for H&M in New York.
Playful styles by Betsey Johnson, Anna Sui and Vivienne Tam are popular at Macy’s, where dress sales are robust. Nicole Fischelis, the store’s fashion director, predicted that demand would accelerate by spring, with the arrival of “a whole dress wardrobe” — shirtdresses, lantern-shaped smocks, even ankle-length maxidresses.
AS late as the 1970’s, Seventh Avenue was home to dozens of dress manufacturers, their wares housed in special sections of department stores. But around that time, a dearth of styles and sizes suitable for women entering the work force, as well as the dress’s overly frothy image, all but killed off a once thriving business. Today the daytime dress department is extinct, but dresses, interspersed among the sportswear and designer looks, have returned in force.
Mr. Wolfe cited what he calls the sports dress as a particular success. He defined it as a casual look, “a shirtwaist, shift or jumper, something that is comfort-driven, an extension of the sportswear top.”
Retail specialists say that dresses are alluring to the customer long starved for easy to wear, emphatically womanly looks. “We are coming off a time period where things were very suit-and-pants-driven,” said Robert Burke, a New York retail consultant. “Now we’re seeing a lot more feminine clothing.”
Older women like the dress. “There is a memory of the 60’s and 70’s, when we all wore dresses,” said Linda Dresner, the owner of boutiques in New York and Birmingham, Mich. They represented a “glamorous lady feel, and they were sexy,” she said. “That’s been missed.” Ms. Dresner noted a full-skirted black wool dress by Azzedine Alaïa and fluid Alberta Ferretti looks as top sellers this fall.
But younger women, too, are surprised to discover dresses as forgiving alternatives to jeans, the perfect antidote to one too many brunch-hour Bellinis.
“I’ve never like tight-fitting clothes,” said Anna Krieger, a real estate agent who was shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue last week. She turned from jeans to dresses last summer and recently bought a Vince button-front knit version to see her into fall.
For Ms. Krieger, 23, a widening selection of dresses that swing out from the shoulders, just grazing the hips, is reason to rejoice. “This is the first time in my memory that designers have matched comfort and style really successfully,” she said.
Others are delighted to find interpretations that accommodate a variety of moods and body types. Dresses “are fun to wear,” said Liz Retz, 25, a project manager for a New York advertising agency, as she examined a rack of high-waisted jersey dresses at Saks. “You can put them with boots or high-heeled shoes and a belt and completely change their look,” she said.
Eileen Rosen, 59, an office manager at an optical firm in Manhattan, prefers a jumper. “It’s loose and comfortable,” she said. “You can wear it alone or over a sweater or shirt.” Her daughter, Jennifer Rosen, 26, an advertising saleswoman, gravitates to short sweater dresses worn with tights or ankle boots. “They make me feel feminine,” she said.
As frivolous as some dresses may seem, they appeal to women in the corporate world. Ms. Dresner said that even lawyers have not shied away.
But others think twice about wearing a dress on the job. “It might look a little bit less mature, less established than a pantsuit,” said Ms. Krieger, the real estate agent. “People look at dresses as a casual thing, not as a serious look.” She wears her dresses on weekends, “mostly for comfort,” she said.
Ms. Rosen, the ad sales representative, often puts on a dress for dates. She relishes the look on her boyfriend’s face when she greets him at the door. “I wear jeans all the time, so his eyes light up,” Ms. Rosen said. “He likes that element of surprise. That what a dress is about.”
