Feminism Fights Back in Fashion!

Substantial. That word sounds more suited to describing upholstery and furnishings than the contents of a fashionable wardrobe. But it is all change in the closet for the new autumn season.

Out go the flimsy, frilly and girlie looks that were the despair of women dressing for work and playthings for those who love every shade of pink. After a decade dominated by clothes that were lightweight in every sense, a more feminist image is fighting its way back.

Starting with thick winter fabrics like woolens and tweeds and ending with the sturdy shoes that make kitten-heeled mules look like another footwear species, the female body now has the option for a complete cover-up.

Back from the fashion castoffs comes the suit -- and especially the jacket in all its incarnations from a roomy or snug blazer through the more austere mannish, buttoned jacket. Its partner is a skirt that is either much longer or wider than the brief and skinny styles of summer. The midcalf skirt is making a tentative return, as is the knee-length A-line skirt.

Coats, too, have taken a serious turn. The way that cocoon shapes emerged on the runway at Calvin Klein suggested a new sobriety and an urge to look like a woman of substance. Similarly, the Marc Jacobs approach, offering slim, fitted coats worn with hats, ushered in a different era for a designer who was once known for his little-girl look.

What else is on the fashion radar? Pants are reshaped to rise high, rather than skim low. Hipster jeans now look like the last dregs of the summer wine, but there are whimsical ideas such as jodhpurs to pair with a shrunken jacket. The most stylish pants are simply fitted at the waist, generous and mannish, recalling the early days of Yves Saint Laurent. In fact, it is the current YSL designer Stefano Pilati who has caught the new mood, with his purposeful wool dresses and coats, thick hose and a look that is resolutely female, without resorting to femininity.

The return of thick knits is another sign of change -- whether it is climate-related, in anticipation of extreme weather, or just responding to a cry of help from those women who don't live in a Hollywood bubble of perennial summer and perpetual partying.

The big-knit story -- and some of those sweaters are very big indeed -- is cable stitching. Ultra-light yarn twisted into hefty ropes of wool is even used as decoration on the tweeds and wool cloth of jumper dresses. The high-rise collar, pulling wool up and over the chin, makes sweaters seem all enveloping.

Cardigans, too, have undergone a transformation from the pretty little shrugs covering not much more than the shoulders. The cardigan coat, stretching down to the knees or even midcalf, is an autumn alternative to a jacket or coat.

Thickening up is the universal message, but new technology tackles the concept in a different way -- hence Prada's fluffy, matted sweaters or the semi-sheer nylon suits at Miu Miu. Sometimes classic ideas are revived with a modern spirit, as in darts shaping the severity of plain, slim Jil Sander dresses.

Accessories follow the clothing trend, with the lush Holbein-inspired berets at Louis Vuitton just one of many fashionable head coverings. Thick hose has totally obscured the new millennium fashion for bared winter legs. And now arms are getting the same treatment. Gloves fitted up to the elbows are a surprise contestant, with a focus on padded gauntlets -- Burberry's inspired by arctic exploration.

Handbags, that fashion symbol of modern times, are bigger and bolder than ever and loaded with heavy metal. But are their days numbered? Invented after the French Revolution of 1789, when dresses were too flimsy to contain pockets, bags have since flourished when fashion was barely there. The more substantial looks and the return of jackets with pockets may reduce the handbag's potency.

Much has been written -- and often derided -- about hems and waistlines as a mirror of economics. The theory that rising skirts, lightweight fabrics, sexual provocation and waists swinging high or low is a sign of social and financial abandon was first put forward by the fashion historian James Laver in 1963. Since then, economic cycles have been traced in timelines that set out to prove that cover-up clothes and waists in place mean fiscal penitence after financial excess.

Since the current fashion trends are definitively away from empire waist baby-doll smocks and wisps of dresses toward sense, solemnity and whittled waists, those hedge-fund managers had better note the end of fashion's bare exposure -- and prepare themselves for a bear market.

Source: International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. Powered by Yellowbrix.