Fashion: How Now? Brown

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Paris finds itself swept up in a craze for chestnut-brown color that is being called "La folie du marron." While high-fashion arbiters were favoring basic black, buyers last summer began ordering their ready-to-wear dresses and suits in brown. Manufacturers took note, but no one imagined how far the dye would be cast.

Daniel Hechter, a major ready-to-wear designer, watched his orders for brown jump from 35% to 80%. Fabric makers began running out of stock, started using up old yardage as well as tinting all of their beige, light blues and whites. By last month, Stocking Manufacturer Gerbe was putting out 48,000 pairs of brown stockings and tights a week, and handbag shops found that nine out of every ten bags sold were brown.

Now all the high-fashion designers and shops want to climb aboard. Cardin has proclaimed: "Brown has class; it lends an air of distinction." Yves St. Laurent's bestsellers have turned out to be a brown tweed suit with cape and brown velvet evening ensembles. "Brown is such a beautiful color for winter," says French Vogue Editor Francoise de Langlade de La Renta. "So warm, so wonderful against a tanned skin." In Rome, after her trip to Cambodia and Thailand, Jacqueline Kennedy promptly placed an order with her favorite Italian designer, Valentino. Her choice: a wool crepe Mao shirt and matching skirt in midi length that reaches down to the middle of her calf, in brown.