FASHION: The Old New Look

• Share

The high priests and priestesses of fashion in Paris last week officially proclaimed what Manhattan's Seventh Avenue already knew: the sack is sacked and the chemise gets the breeze (TIME, June 30). At the Paris showings, the new look was an old one—the Empire style, first devised by the ancient Greeks and popularized in the 19th century by the Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon. Its chief characteristics: a bosomy neckline, a high waist pulled in just below the bust, a flowing, bell-like skirt.

While most fashion writers trilled their usual ohs and ahs over the collections, the New York Herald Tribune's Eugenie Sheppard said bluntly: "Before I left New York, the Empire look was the big news in American fall fashions. Many of the American versions were better conceived than those I've seen here."

Dior's Designer Yves Saint-Laurent, who had helped set the mode with his trapeze look last winter, scored no such acclaim last week. While almost every other designer kept hemlines at the knees, Saint-Laurent lowered them some five inches to just 15 inches above the floor. No one else showed any signs of going along. In fact, one U.S. buyer who ordered some Dior dresses specified that they be delivered four inches shorter.