ROANOKE TIMES
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 24, 1991                   TAG: 9103210169
SECTION: SPRING FASHION                    PAGE: E-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Tracie Fellers/ Staff writer
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long


RESHAPING THE '60S/ FASHION DESIGNERS UPDATE A POPULAR LOOK WITH THE FLAIR AN

WHEN you look at the total picture, fashion's apparent obsession with the '60s doesn't seem quite so puzzling.

Cher's "Shoop Shoop Song" and UB40's "The Way You Do the Things You Do" have been all over the pop radio airwaves - two remakes of good-time tunes from 1964, before the decade had lost its innocence.

Psychedelia has returned with "The Doors," playing at your neighborhood multiplex.

The growing environmental movement echoes the back-to-the-land philosophy of the '60s.

And the war in the Persian Gulf provided the most eerie parallel of all between now and then. The deployment of troops in the Middle East raised fears that the country might be headed for another Vietnam.

But step out of the time warp and back into this decade, and it's clear times have changed.

Fashion designers have taken the '60s look, shaped it for the '90s and presented their collections in a fresh-spirited and futuristic way "that looks like something from the year 2000," says Frances Kahn manager Rose Dauphin.

The styles have more sophisticated lines. Fabrics are lighter, softer, and designers have taken advantage of stretch materials to keep styles closer to the body.

But there's no denying the link between '60s style in its original incarnation and the '90s interpretations.

Retailers and the fashion press have hailed the '60s chic trio - Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn - among the industry's muses for spring.

"Anything that looks like Jackie O" makes a statement this season, says Kay Lugar of Kay's, a shop in Roanoke's Picadilly Square.

"We really saw that for last fall, the influence began," says E.I. Randle president Diana Vaughan. "Jackie had an attitude that was pared-down," and that look of elegant simplicity is coming on strong.

"I think we're going back to ladylike dressing," Dauphin says, "and in the '60s . . . it was very much of a ladylike look. . . . They had the slip dress and the small structured handbags and the gloves, and everything matched."

But if ladylike isn't your style, there's no need for distress. When fashion reaches back to the decade that gave us the Camelot years and the space-age dresses of Courreges, you can bet there's another side to the story.

Bold, bright geometric prints inspired by '60s fashion guru Emilio Pucci easily recall the free-spirited, flower-power days of the decade. The abstract prints, in vivid purples, yellows, reds, pinks and blues, are splashed on everything: leggings, stirrup pants, spunky short dresses for day and sleek short ones covered with clear sequins for nighttime sparkle. Pucci-esque clothes are availble at all price levels and can be found in stores from Gone Coco on the Roanoke City Market to The Limited.

"I feel that this is definitely a fashion direction for the customer who has never seen it before," Vaughan says. "I think it has an appeal to the younger clientele . . . people like me have done it already.

"But of course, everything comes around again."

Vaughan feels the same way about hot pants, micro-minis and childlike baby-doll dresses, other '60s styles that have been rejuvenated for spring.

She laughs when she recalls looking at baby-doll dresses in a New York showroom this winter. "It was hysterical . . . they were calling them the Jan Brady dress or the Mia Farrow dress." But she doesn't discount their charm.

Gayle Stephens, owner of G.G. MaGann and a self-described product of the '60s, says the clothes she's stocking for spring bring back fond memories. "It was a fun way to dress. . . . It was just a way to express yourself, and I think that's one of the reasons the kids like it now," she says.

Stephens, 38, who grew up in Charlottesville, spent a lot of time as a teen putting outfits together in her basement sewing room.

There, among the daisies, sunflowers and peace symbols painted on the walls, she created her masterpiece, a dress for the senior prom: "That's when hot pants were really the thing. It was a white dress with purple polka dots - big and little - and apple-green polka dots. Then there was a purple background with white and apple-green polka dots that I used for a bodice, and there was a bow or something at the back.

"Then we slit it all the way to the waist and put apple-green hot pants under it."

She breaks into uninhibited laughter at the memory. "I would give anything to be able to find that dress. I know it's something my daughter would like to have now."

Stephens' daughter, Lauren, is 13 and in love with '60s-influenced styles, Stephens says. She has a hard time believing her mother ever wore hot pants and baby-doll dresses.

Now, Stephens says, "I like the leggings and the big shirts and things like that. [But] the baby-doll dress is the baby-doll dress. It's the same thing, although now it's shorter and you wear leggings under it."

She paused for a moment, then punctuated the following with a resonant laugh:

"I would probably wear sunflowers before I would wear the baby-doll dress."



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