New Attitudes for ’92 : It’s Goodby to Excessiveness as Industry Adopts a New Social Awareness; N.Y. Styles Borrow From Gardens, California
In this city they do things to excess--and that includes stamping out excessiveness.
The ‘80s bashing that people are talking about across the country is already influencing the way designers show their collections here as spring ’92 fashion week continues.
The new attitude of social consciousness was set Sunday night when the Fashion Group, an organization of industry women, honored four prominent figures for their community service: Audrey Hepburn, who now represents UNICEF; Wanda Ferragamo, head of the Ferragamo fashion empire who sponsors family welfare programs; Evelyn Lauder of Estee Lauder, who supports cancer research, and Carolyne Roehm, who helped raise more than $4 million this year to fight AIDS.
Roehm was named for the award before she announced this fall that she would close her ready-to-wear business immediately.
Still fragile-looking after the traumatic decision, she spent Sunday evening close to her husband, Henry Kravis, and more than once her eyes brimmed with tears. Wearing a red dress from her final ready-to-wear collection and with a cast on her arm because of a riding accident, she braved the press.
Roehm said she is considering full-time work in the social services. “Black-tie dinners are nice, but I’d like to do something more tangible now,” she explained.
That’s likely to be a nouvelle society slogan for the ‘90s.
Cosmetics giant Leonard Lauder, Evelyn’s husband, has caught the spirit, too. “The ‘80s were about taking, the ‘90s will be about giving,” he predicted.
On Monday, designer Carolina Herrera kissed the extravagant ‘80s goodby with a fashion show of only 45 pieces--half the size of her usual collection--staged in her small showroom on 57th Street, not the Grand Ballroom of the Plaza where she used to show. (Since Ivana Trump gave up her post as hotel president, all of the wealthy designers who showed there have made other plans.)
“Big shows were getting to be like a circus,” Herrera said. “Most people were just there to be seen. This time I invited only store buyers and the press, and two friends (one of whom was Jackie Onassis, a regular customer).”
In Herrera’s new collection, tissue-thin crepe minidresses had ankle-length pleated overskirts. Notched collars and flat pearl buttons gave them a bit of ‘40s nostalgia. She showed them in navy, plaid or ivory.
Pantsuits, already a theme in the New York collections, held a strong place in Herrera’s show. One in white pique had a bodice-wrap of sheer black lace. Her short pastel summer dresses had skirts of overlapping panels or “petals” that swung free as the models walked.
Herrera is also introducing her first fragrance for men this season called Herrera for Men. It is a citrus scent packaged in a natty brown polka-dotted box.
Bill Blass went back to the garden for his spring collection, which was sprinkled with floral embroidered bustiers worn with pale tulle skirts. He paired a floral beaded jacket with yellow awning-stripe pants for a glamour-on-your-day-off effect that is pure Blass. A short lace coat dress with a gray flannel collar offered a similar mix of formal and informal. So did a long, taffeta ball-gown skirt topped by a sweater set. But when Blass tried this dressy-casual formula on some striped knit shifts with Cleopatra-sized jewel collars, he pushed his luck too far.
Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour, seated in the audience, was already wearing a green and white plaid suit from Blass’ runway show. It made people wonder how and when she does her shopping. (She once explained that she shops from Polaroids taken in designer showrooms.)
Socialites are spending less in this new age of limits, but they’re not hunting for bargains. The chairs at Blass were taken by Brooke Astor, Barbara Walters, opera singer Jesse Norman and Nancy Kissinger, among others.
Arnold Scaasi took the same route as Blass with his garden-themed collections. Models handed out red silk roses from the runway, as large as any in the Queen of Heart’s garden. At the end of the show, the Scaasi bride tossed her bouquet into the crowd--which runway brides seldom do. Carrie Donovan, fashion editor of the New York Times Sunday magazine--and single--caught it.
There were more red roses embroidered on white organdy cocktail dresses with mid-calf-length skirts in Scaasi’s show. There were country-club dresses for a summer’s night.
But the collection wasn’t all love and marriage. A roaring-pink flamenco dancer’s dress, which was short in front, cascaded in a mass of ruffles in back.
And some Cuervo gold- and orange-colored chiffon dresses with beaded jackets were the dance-till-you-drop climax of this mostly dress-up collection. (And to think, First Lady Barbara Bush is one of Scaasi’s best-known customers.)
Marc Jacobs of Perry Ellis has been saying for months that his next collection would be dedicated to California. And he wasn’t kidding.
There were cowgirl boots and oversized tuxedos for night, leather short shorts and matching linen blazers for day, and ruffle-hemmed sarongs for at-home.
Jacobs turned to the famous lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel for inspiration in a series of palm frond and flamenco-pink baggy surfer shorts with drawstring waistlines, and a chintz robe to wear to the pool.
His homage to East L.A. included some witty and elegant miniskirts that seemed cut from the brims of silver embroidered sombreros. Serape-stripe blazers and poetic white shirts rounded out that portion of the show.
Then there was the formal wear--billowing taffeta evening skirts hand-painted with desert landscapes, or statues of Oscar. Of course, the surfer shorts could be L.A. formal wear as well.
In a week when most collections have been dangerously close to dull, Jacobs showed a spark of originality.
