Fashion 88 : N.Y. Designer Is Long on Shorter Styles
“The customer ultimately dictates the fashion,” New York designer Andrea Jovine explained. “If she doesn’t buy short skirts, we won’t make them.”
Her customer is obviously buying above-the-knee looks, because that’s the only skirt length available from Jovine this season. But, as if to indicate that women are not scooping up short styles with as much resolve as Jovine had hoped, she noted that her fall ’88 collection will feature some longer skirts.
Spring Designs
“Length is not as much of an issue as everyone makes it,” Jovine said in an interview prior to a fashion show featuring her spring designs at Robinson’s Woodland Hills store.
Known for her figure-revealing styles, the New Jersey-born designer features several skirts in her collection that are cropped to mid-thigh and wears her own at least two inches above the knee. For “gam-phobic” shoppers, pants and shorts are the prevailing options.
“Very often we make the mistake of forcing the consumer,” Jovine acknowledged. “But you can’t do that anymore. Today’s women know how they want to look. They are educated about quality. They are much more price-conscious than they were five years ago, especially when it comes to clothes. They know that it’s now possible to get a designer look without spending a lot of money.”
Jovine said ensuring consistent quality means having her clothes manufactured in Hong Kong. And that, in turn, means that the designer makes four or five trips each year to the British colony.
With sketches in hand, she supervises the development of first samples, despite her limited knowledge of Chinese.
With one season’s production underway, she leaves the Far East and heads to Europe to research fabrics for a far-off season or back to New York to design the next collection.
“In between, I squeeze in trips to museums, the theater and films, for inspiration,” she said.
The daughter of a fashion designer-turned-sculptor and a music teacher, Jovine was educated in Switzerland and at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. After assisting Seventh Avenue designer Bill Kaiserman, she opened her own firm in 1983.
In partnership with garment-industry entrepreneur Victor Coopersmith, Jovine, who just turned 31, is vice president and designer of the firm that bears her name.
‘Total Concept’
Having just added large-size and petite collections, Jovine said expansion is high on her list of short-range goals. Long range, shops that feature only her merchandise, like other moderately priced designers, such as Adrienne Vittadini and Liz Claiborne.
“It’s one way to express a total concept,” explained Jovine, who said her 1987 sales volume was $20 million.
In her spring ’88 collection, linen, cotton and rayon are the predominant fabrics. Neutrals and brights are both sparked with navy. Pants, in short and long lengths, high-waisted or hip-yoked, provide an alternative to her short, straight skirts. Jackets are cropped to bolero proportions or elongated and belted at the waist. Dresses, whether worn tight enough to show off a tiny waist or cinched with a belt to define one, are all above the knee.
Jovine predicts that silhouette changes in the next few years will be subtle and slow.
“Fashion often doesn’t give women enough time to get adjusted. That has to change,” she said.
“I too am a consumer. I don’t want to throw things out from season to season. I want my personal wardrobe to evolve, to grow with things I add each year. That’s the way I design.”
