Think On It

Fashion: think ahead

September 11th, 2007

This Vera Wang design is in the Spring Collections as reported by the New York Times. But is is also a reminder of what Marc Jacobs showed us a while back that has seemed to begin a slide towards being womanly and pretty.

While few of us who are normally proportioned are going to wear the exaggerated proportions on this model, many of us are going to wear looser skirts to the knee or a little below it and tailored tops. It’s fashion that works. You can walk in it, move in it, sit in it without overexposing yourself. It can be worn with boots when the weather is dreadful and shoes when it is fine, or sandals when it gets hot again.

These classic and feminine clothes make accessories important again. Stockings are back! Thank goodness. Shoes are terribly hard on the feet if you don’t wear stockings. Jacobs showed his version with a long sweater belted at the waist. Most people look a bit better with the belt relaxed to fall a little lower in front. A gigantic “name” bag is all wrong too, so you don’t have to regret for a moment that you and the Grace Kelly bag are separated by $10,000. A cuff bracelet looks great with both the winter and the spring version of this look. The big thing, however, is that there are hats, hats, hats all over if you’ve the nerve for them.

People are forever telling me they don’t have a hat face, but I know that means they haven’t tried on enough hats to have found the style that makes them more beautiful. There was a day, not so very long ago, when no respectable woman went out without a hat, and those ladies looked hard to find the hat that suited. All hats are not huge and floppy nor are they flowery or be-plumed. Look harder, because nothing can work harder to make you look better proportioned or taller than a hat.

When it gets cold enough for a jacket, this year it is trim and fitted at least to follow your shape. A few jackets are trapeze shaped, but take it from me, those are hard to wear unless you are very tall and relatively flat.

Most of us won’t be going to Barney’s and buying the big names, but when we buy the pieces we need this winter, we’ll be wise to make them feminine and practical. On my list are are longer stitched-down pleated skirt, a longer sweater and a pair of tailored boots. I think I may have seen the very ones this weekend at a saddler’s display. I’ll look for a webpage and show them to you if I can. They gave me an instant image of me in Paris, doing the town — in red.

Entry Filed under: Fashion, Beauty