Fashion: First Look

Most Paris dress designers belong to the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, which is French for "No photographs of zee newest fashions may be publeeshed unteel one month aftair les showeeings à Paree." This restriction on photos gives the secretive designers and the buyers of originals a jump on design pirates, who can take a look at a photograph and run up a copy before the respectable houses can get their seams straight. Last week the deadline expired, and U.S. women could stop studying sketches and at last have a look at what the fashion columnists had been describing in their fluting prose for weeks. They could heave a collective sigh of relief (see cuts).

The belted waist was in and so was the welt-seamed skirt that whirls like a skater's costume. Hemlines stayed put. The buyers' favorites were Givenchy's high bustline, soft-shouldered dresses and Balenciaga's short shrug jackets. A hemstitch away in popularity: Yves St. Laurent's "cowboy look" (sombreros, neckerchiefs), and Marc Bohan's Dior evening gowns that plunge front and back. Copies, adaptations and custom reproductions will be ready in U.S. shops this month.