Over & Under

If being thin were easy, everyone would try it.

And if interpreting the latest high-fashion looks were a snap, women would put themselves together effortlessly, without the costly mistakes, embarrassing trial and error, and serious study that often accompany adopting and adapting a new trend.

This spring’s sheer styles offer a challenge to fashion-conscious women who want to make a new and potentially disastrous look wearable. A gossamer wisp of a dress may be oh-so-romantic on the hangar. On a real body, it requires work.

Lingerie manufacturers are valuable allies in this season’s war against unwanted public exposure. The stores are stocked with nude bodysuits, unitards and slip-like dress liners that provide a barrier between someone else’s naked eye and your barely concealed nakedness. Olga’s Secret Shapers, Donna Karan Intimates and Bodyslimmers by Nancy Ganz make a range of clever undergarments from semi-opaque camisoles with built-in bras to flesh-toned leggings.

Adding a layer of nylon and Spandex under filmy clothes does increase the cost of an outfit. Style innovations rarely arrive with the promise of economy, so expect to pay from $24 for the best, most invisible, seamless nude bra by Calvin Klein to $150 for a Donna Karan spaghetti-strapped underdress that’s snug as a second skin. Some sheer clothes come with their own slips and liners, but only a test drive in the glare of a dressing room’s fluorescent lights will tell whether more layers are needed. Stretchy mesh underthings don’t add bulk, but on summer days, the more layers the hotter.

Pairing revealing clothes with undergarments that create the illusion of nudity is only one approach, however. The other ways to wear sheer are either to cover it up or to deliberately display your underwear, making the underpinnings part of the effect.

Several designers champion the latter method. The Dolce & Gabbana collection incorporates corsets into gowns, and pops transparent dresses over leopard-spotted panties that are meant to be seen. Betsey Johnson combines screaming-orange lace undies with sheer dresses. At Prada and its younger sister, Miu Miu, plain, sturdy briefs contrast with the sweetness of diaphanous dresses.

While visible underwear can provide a modicum of modesty, such a solution seems more appropriate for the runway than the real world. Clubs will continue to be happy haunts for lingerie unwilling to hide, but strolling down most streets in a lacy bra and thong under a chiffon dress is still more of a walk on the wild side than most women want to take. Not every idea shown by designers and fashion magazines is meant to be taken seriously. In the case of letting underwear show in broad daylight, the appropriate response is, “I get it. They’re kidding.”

Covering see-through clothes with a jacket, vest or sweater might seem to defeat the purpose, but the delicacy of the exercise is maintained when each layer is light.

There’s a nice bed-jacket effect to a small-scaled sweater over a filmy dress. The newest alternative, as shown in the Prada spring collection, is a short-sleeved, sheer shirt over a dress.

Several designers suggest stacking varied shades of sheer fabrics--sometimes navy seen through an ivory scrim, or a dark topping of georgette muting the tones of a red or blue under-layer. Call this the is-she-or-isn’t-she look in Technicolor. Or, as Jules Feiffer’s dancing woman might say, rapturously pirouetting under layers of fluttering gauze, “An ode to spring and its gift of nudity.”