Peasant Revisited

Remember peasant blouses? Yes, you remember peasant blouses. You had to sew them in seventh-grade Home Economics, those billowy, cotton things with the puffed sleeves and puffed everything, but somehow the elasticized sleeves, neckline and waistline always cut interesting red patterns into your flesh. But it was OK because Judy Collins wore them, so you did too.

Oh, yes, those peasant blouses. Well, they’re back--and, believe it or not, better than ever. “What goes around comes around,” muses Ellen Luff of Raffles, a boutique in Encino. Her store’s peasant blouses, which come in cotton or rayon and sell from $70 to $130, are very popular with both older and younger girls, who both do and don’t remember them.

“Some people do remember them from the early ‘70s,” she says. “But the peasanty, romantic look is back. The whole trend of fashion has taken on the close-to-the-body look; it’s great for summer.”

And what do those people who lived through the early ‘70s say when they see peasant blouses back on the racks? “They say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t hang onto what I had in my closet!”’ said Luff.

Nancy Rommelman, an actress in her mid-20s, is one past and present peasant blouse wearer who can attest to the differences between yesterday’s and today’s blouses. “The old peasant blouse used to leave marks in your skin,” she says. “But this is much softer,” she says of the powder-blue cotton, midriff-length peasant blouse she now owns. “The elastic is very comfortable.

“I’ve always liked that Gypsy look--the colors, the fabrics,” she continues. “So this is just right for me. It’s a perfect California look.”

But Rommelman can remember at least one embarrassing incident in her peasant blouse-wearing history. “The only bad thing about a peasant blouse is if someone wants to pull it off you quickly, they can,” she says of the slip-on, slip-off blouse. “That happened to me in the ‘70s. I wore my peasant blouse to camp and this boy pulled it off of me in front of the entire campground. They were all saying the Pledge of Allegiance.”