Designer Jennifer George Has Reality Covered for Spring

Too many designers make today’s woman work too hard to find clothes that work for her.

No matter how beautiful the tailoring or how fine the fabric, slip dresses, short flippy skirts and long skinny jackets aren’t the stuff for aging baby boomers--or for anyone with a serious job or a bad case of cellulite. And the youngsters, the Generation X’ers who wear them best, generally can’t afford them.

But there is body-friendly clothing out there that’s fashionable and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Jennifer George specializes in it. The Seventh Avenue designer says her spring ’94 collection is “a young look that covers a multitude of sins.”

She says that’s because when she designs, she thinks in terms of “myself, my mother, my partner’s wife and my partner’s mother. My mother and I are short and hippy; my partner’s wife is statuesque.”

This time, too, her toddler had an influence--with the Oshkoshes he wears.

“I’m doing overalls,” she says, “overall dresses, shorty overalls for day in navy cotton gabardine with gold buttons, and for evening in lace. They’re extremely comfortable.”

Jennifer George presented this collection in the same manner as her fall show: On live mannequins in minimal animation on platforms in the New York Public Library. Guests could walk around at their leisure, catching an up-close look, even stopping to chat with the models.

She says the runway isn’t her milieu and her clothes aren’t runway clothes, anyway. “If I put suede piping on chiffon, you’re not going to see it from there,” she says.

What one could see close up on a crisp November morning during Spring Fashion Week were classics in updated cuts and modern fabrics: khaki and navy separates with light blue chambray and white shirts. There were drawstring waists on skirts and pants, empire dresses, big unconstructed jackets, sculpted white shirts that camouflage the hips, even rubberized shirting fabric made into a “rain shirt.”

She accessorized all with penny loafers, nubuck oxfords or flat sandals. And she put in pockets, lots of pockets, even on a black silk and wool faille halter wrap dress for evening.

Prices for spring, according to David Rubin, her business partner, will range from $200 for a blouse or matte jersey shorts to about $600 for an evening dress. “The bulk will be in the $300 to $400 range,” he says.

“These clothes are ‘of the moment’ because of their proportion, fabric and detail,” George says. “These are the elements that mark my collections’ place in time. Women who wear my clothes tell me about a shirt or skirt or pants or jacket they bought five or six years ago. They’re still wearing them, they tell me--mixed with pieces from my current collection.

“I love to hear that there’s no such thing as ‘last year’s Jennifer George.’ ”