Fall Fashion: A Bicoastal Blitz : The Plaza’s the Place as Manhattan’s Finest Get Colorful, but Mainly Play It Safe
As the fall fashion showings continue through this week, many of them at the Plaza Hotel, Ivana Trump is a frequent hostess. Since her husband, Donald, purchased the hotel last summer, she is its president. And she has taken front row seats at the shows held there, careful to change her outfit several times a day so that her labels match those on the runway.
“When my husband bought the Plaza I thought to myself, ‘I like fashion,’ ” she said, suggesting how it happened that more than a dozen designers are launching their fall lines in the hotel’s regal public rooms. (In seasons past, their shows have occurred all around town.)
But Ruth Finley, who publishes the Fashion Calendar and schedules the semiannual New York shows, said there was more to it than that. “Ivana is anxious to make the Plaza a fashion hotel,” she explained. The cause? Socialites-for-style.
Designers with some of the strongest social connections in the country are on the hotel’s fashion roster this week. Among them, Carolina Herrera, who dresses Jacqueline Onassis, and Arnold Scaasi, preferred by Mrs. Bush. Bill Blass, a favorite of both the current and the previous First Ladies, showed his collection at the Hotel Pierre across the street, as usual.
Some Agreement
These designers agree about certain things. Skirts for fall are narrow and knee length or thereabouts. Legs are covered with thicker hosiery, some of it ribbed like celery. And a woman can’t have enough cashmere crewneck sweaters in her wardrobe. (Herrera tied them around the waistline of trousers, adding a gold brooch near the knot for decoration. Blass showed them in trompe l’oeil effects, for a sweater-over-the-shoulders illusion knitted into one garment.) Suits with pants, especially cut on the wider side, are still more popular than skirts. And colors are monochromatic from the shoulders to the shoes.
As statements go these fashion views are as safe as saying all the right things at a society dinner. But then, there are suggestions of individuality. At Blass they took the form of animal print silk items in iridescent gold, copper and bronze for evening. He mixed long, flowing animal-print skirts and matching stoles with simple cashmere sweaters, or animal print metallic blazers and matching gloves with short, black skirts for a sporty elegant effect.
For his California customers, including Nancy Reagan and friends, Blass showed a sleeveless sheath with a triangle-shaped cut-out in back between the shoulders. He featured it in glen plaid, soft gray and camel color wool.
Star watchers were not happy that Blass separated his celebrity customers from the press, showing his collection at 10 o’clock for them, and noon for everybody else. That cut down considerably on the glitterati in the media-filled audience. Perhaps Tina Brown, editor of Vanity Fair magazine, was the hottest name at the later show. Her suit was scarlet and so were her fingernails.
Herrera invited everybody at the same hour. But Paloma Picasso and Brooke Hayward quietly took the last row, far away from the press. Among media stars at that show, Anna Wintour, the controversial new editor of Vogue magazine, sat in front with her sunglasses on.
Fashionable Departures
Herrera’s personal fashion departures were all in color. She tied cableknit sweaters around the waist of jewel-neckline shifts, mixing violet with aqua or burgundy with powder blue for a vibrant alternative to the little black dress. But her show stoppers were a group of motorcycle jackets in black velvet, decorated with brass nailheads and bold scale zippers. The big question in the audience at that show: “Will Jackie Onassis wear one?”
Scaasi’s best ideas were colorful evening outfits. He showed color-block chiffon gowns, green with blue or orange with violet. Other entrance makers were his simply shaped ball gowns in rich brocade fabrics. He showed soft gray suits and fitted, knee-length gray dresses with deep, mink toques as afternoon wear fit for the White House.
The New Guard
Two designers who showed earlier this week are described as part of New York’s “new guard.” One, Charlotte Neuville, started out in fashion as an assistant to the late Perry Ellis and now has her own label. The other, Marc Jacobs, is actually replacing Ellis in his own company. Jacobs showed his first collection under the Ellis banner this week.
Neuville designs clothes with a thrift shop, menswear feeling that look right for college girls or young career women. For fall her suits, in unusual shades of mustard or mauve, went with skirts hiked well above the knees, and oversized jackets nearly as long as the skirts. Her pants were often cut wide and cropped above the ankle, like vintage menswear.
She featured sidewalk-sweeping steamer coats in colors such as Army green. And she mixed color in creative combinations--burgundy with plum and deep chartreuse for a pant suit with a tailored blouse--which Ellis also did well.
In this collection she topped several short-skirted suits with sporty, celery green or smoky gray fox coats from her fur collection, a new addition to her label. Her evening clothes in particular were reminiscent of the sort of menswear items that women like for themselves. She showed extra-long jackets in iridescent fabrics, over matching pants with cuffs, and men’s “bathrobe” coats in translucent fabrics to wear over matching pant suits.
Marc Jacobs’ collection promised to be the most exciting of the day, but it was actually disappointment for many. Jacobs, who turned 26 on Sunday, kept up the young, witty attitude his pre-Ellis collections have been known for. And certain items in this show worked well. But not all.
The Hits List
His hits included allusions to summer camp clothes--satin, jewel-toned parkas and satin life-vests like those required for river raft trips, gave a new look to his skin-tight, suede jeans. A stars ‘n’ stripes stole in oyster and black was a playful piece that he wrapped around a strapless, vertical-stripe evening dress in black and white. And his egg-shaped, mohair sweaters that grazed the thighs looked young and lively over tights and thigh-high suede boots. In the audience, actress Susan Sarandon, who is about to have a baby, said the big sweaters were just what she would like to wear these days.
Less successful were the neo-hippie wrap skirts with rows of multicolor fringe, the heavy tweed pant suits with knickers, and the ‘60s-inspired, tight pants tucked into tall boots, worn with fitted, tailored shirts and vests in what appeared to be aggressively haphazard combinations.
But the mistakes at this show began well before the clothes came down the runway. Getting inside the building was like passing inspection for a snooty night club. On windy Lafayette Street, outside the door, ushers as young or even younger than Jacobs himself cruised the long line of people holding tickets and pulled out their favorites, hustling them quickly inside. Store retailers seemed to have special clout. The ushers wore T-shirts that read “Verry Ellis.” But people who knew Ellis to be a gracious man were put off before they saw even one of the not-very Ellis fashion designs inside.
