Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509150138
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At work, you're suited up like Lauren Bacall if she'd ever had a day job. Your jacket is short and fitted, probably brown, maybe boucle, with a patent leather belt around the waist. The skirt may be a little shorter than Bacall would have worn, but the heels are just as high.
Going out for the evening? Think Audrey. Or Uma, depending on your destination. Evening wear is glamorous, retro. (It's no accident that a remake of ``Sabrina" is about to hit the theaters.) If you've got the body for it, you might try the slim-leg pant, a short sweater or short shirt. You could even twist in it.
The fashion industry is giving top billing to the influence of movies - and Jackie O. - this year, and it seems evident in the pages of Elle and Vogue these past couple of months.
But what fashion buyers in the Roanoke Valley are seeing in this fall's trends is much more exciting news for real people who have to spend real money on real clothes, and it is this: After a three- to four-year standoff between the fashion industry and consumers (with the industry panicking and consumers yawning), designers seem to be coming down to earth about what women, at least, think is pretty. Designers realize that women have long stopped being slavish to hemline edicts; that men and women want what will work with what they have, what will LAST, what is comfortable and looks good on them; and that, finally, everybody's a little tired of black.
So, everybody, meet brown. Meet texture. Meet casual clothes that you can wear to work.
Sure, there's still some goofy stuff out there. There will always be 1 percent of the population that looks good in it and will buy it and another 1 percent that THINKS they look good in it and will buy it.
And then there's a bunch of people who pay attention to fashion, but pick and choose carefully because they've been burned by a fad or a piece of bad advice and can't even sell the evidence at a yard sale.
Finally, it seems there are quite a lot of people who really don't care or who make up the rules as they go along. And some of them look really, really good.
The trick to buying clothes that will sell in Roanoke is - well, there are lots of tricks. It's kind of an art, according to Diana Vaughan of E.I. Randle, which just moved to The Forum near the Roanoke Athletic Club on Starkey Road.
Actually, it's more of a science, says Larry Davidson of Davidsons.
One fact nearly everyone agrees on: It's crucial for buyers to spend time on the sales floor. And it's important to remember that styles that reflect an intensely urban lifestyle aren't going to make a lot of sense to people who live around here. There are exceptions: the clunky, comfortable boot, for example. New Yorkers who walk 26 blocks a day made them popular, but women everywhere - who have long disliked tripping about in high heels no matter what the weather or length of the journey - have made them a fashion staple.
(Carole Hughes of La De Da sees the roots of this boot phenomenon in the wearing of athletic shoes to and from the office, where one would change into more appropriate shoes.)
People who buy clothes for stores in the Roanoke area use words like "filter" or "modify" or "adapt" to describe how they choose styles to try out here.
Davidson "tests" new clothes in his stores to see how they will do. He may buy just 20 of a new shirt style, for example, but he will put 10 of them in the window to see the reaction.
Vaughan puts it like this: "We're not really selling rubber clothes." What she means is, strange stuff won't sell well here.
What IS selling, by all accounts, is the fitted suit. Rusty Lester of Frances Kahn says that the reception to the new look has been very good - that, in fact, there has been more interest in this particular look than in almost anything else in the last three or four years.
"People are really responding to what's going on out there," Lester says. "The clothes are very wearable, very pretty. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure them out. And the look isn't trying to make a statement about complex aspects of our lives."
It could be that they evoke some very positive female role models, like Mrs. Onassis and Lauren Bacall, "instead of Janis Joplin," Lester says.
Kay Lugar of Kay's in Roanoke agrees with that assessment. "People are responding very positively to the glamour," she says.
What about the fittedness of this suit? Does it leave larger women out in the cold?
Lugar says absolutely not. Several lines offer larger variations on the fitted suit - and they're selling very well.
What's NOT selling, say Vaughan, Lugar and Bonnie Jackson of Patina, is a skirt length 2-3 inches below the knee. That length was being shown with the short, fitted jacket - and it didn't sell. So designers are backing off, Jackson thinks.
"That's the one they're hemming," Lugar says with a laugh.
No. 2 on the Big Fashion News list is definitely TEXTURE. New fabrications, as Davidson puts it. Even shoes, Vaughan says.
Like the mix of faux furs and leathers: They're practically running out of the stores. And suede is very big.
In clothing, it's fabrics that can be worn year-round. Fabrics that drape better, last longer. And, again, fabric combinations.
"When you add some of these wonderful mohair, angora, cashmere sweaters with texture to wool gabardine - it's a whole new look," Vaughan says.
So if you could only buy one new thing this year, well, from the sound of it, it'd have to be the fitted suit for women.
For men? Maybe the neckband shirt. That's the one without the collar that people like John Travolta wore to the Oscars with a tuxedo. But it comes in all styles.
Or, in broader terms, there's the big arrival of fashion separates for men. (If Larry Davidson has anything to say about it, the fashion mismatch of a woman in a little black dress and pearls and a man in a knit shirt and dockers heading out for dinner will be a thing of the past.)
None of this sounds very outlandish?
Well, plenty of extremes are still available - although not many of them can be found in Roanoke since The Underground closed. That was this year's bad fashion news for lots of young people and some not-so-young people here.
But for that large number of people in the middle, there's a lot to feel good about and comfortable in.
We can't all look like Audrey. Or Uma. But a little glamour wouldn't hurt anybody - not one single bit.
by CNB