Fashion: Throw Out Your Skirts

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Gazing gravely down at the traffic along the Rue de Rivoli from his niche on the facade of the Louvre, General Jean-Baptiste Kleber looks sleek and elegant in his long hose, thigh-high boots and short spencer jacket. If his stone eyes could have seen the roiling human traffic around the museum as the ready-to- wear fashion shows were held last week, he might have been amused to observe that he was back in style again after 200 years. But his dashing look is a la mode for women, not for men.

The battle of the hemline may already have been fought to exhaustion, and many designers have concluded that the only way to stop the hostilities is to bulldoze the battlefield -- that is, the skirt. The dominant silhouette at the Paris fall collections was a big top with tights or leggings, often accompanied by boots that climbed well above the knee. In between there was often a sort of apron that resembled a vestigial skirt or, more fancifully, a superwide belt. Only a few classic houses featured any skirts in the usual sense of the word, and only Yves Saint Laurent covered the knee in a few outfits.

Saint Laurent managed to dominate the news in the semiannual pret-a-porter bazaar -- clothes that are manufactured in quantity at much lower prices than the hand-sewed fantasies of haute couture. It was, however, not his fluent, confident designs but his health that made headlines: the fragile designer was hospitalized a few days before his show. His partner, Pierre Berge, issued a statement blaming nervous exhaustion and emphasizing to an AIDS-ravaged industry that no infectious disease was involved.

Though Saint Laurent's 1990 offerings were inspired largely by highlights of his old collections, most of the other designers were looking closely at various costume spectacles during France's bicentennial last summer. This fall the thing most likely to cover the knee will be the hem of a grand swirling cape; almost every designer had his models sweeping the runways with them.

Yohji Yamamoto opened his presentation with dark, brooding outfits that were more like costumes: long belled skirts with heavy wool redingotes. In outline they had the eerie drama of displaced time. And, lest anyone miss the point, the impudent Jean-Paul Gaultier used a few cartoon wigs complete with pompadour and side curls -- in bright orange and electric blue.

How happy hosiery manufacturers must be! Some of the liveliest clothes on view were boldly patterned bodysuits and tights. Christian Lacroix, in his strongest ready-to-wear collection yet, had the best and most vivid. Gaultier made them a major theme, combining glittery threads with tweedy textures and flaunting second-skin bodysuits patterned with strategically positioned bull's-eyes.

The bare allure of the leg keeps the outline modern, but what's a woman to do if she's a bit, well, short stemmed? High boots help the proportions. More important to the complete look is the top, which may actually extend downward to the thigh. More ingenuity and inspiration went into this element of the silhouette than into any other. It's a great year for the jacket.