A Conservative Evolution

At the annual whirl of fall showings last week, socialites, fashion writers and buyers once again filled the Paris salons with silky ohs & ahs. They nodded and buzzed over Schiaparelli's jungle-inspired dinner dresses (trimmed with monkey fur and tiger skin), Maggy Rouff's deep-cut necklines, Jacques Path's tight, shimmering wedding gown (which was pinned together in a last-minute rush, came apart while harpists strummed an Ave Maria).

Rich materials and such new shades as "cigar brown," "seaweed rose," "shrimp pink" and "soft sulphur yellow" helped to create a tizzy of fashionmakers' incoherence. Wrote the N.E.A.'s Rosette Hargrove of one collection (by Carven): "Egyptian inspiration stressing spindled, high-bosomed princess line enhanced by encrusted boleros with contrasting yokes of mummy wrappings and circular embroideries."

Old Style. No one saw any basic changes. The New Look was still the style. The only notable trend was an extravagant use of material (as much as 40 yards of cloth in one dress alone) which marked the collections of such New Look creators as Christian Dior.

As an illustration of what he called the "Cyclone Look," Dior showed an evening gown that had nearly a score of stiffened folds projected backward, making it look as if the wearer were carrying a huge semicircular balloon on her stern. In his "Winged Line," beruffled evening dresses were boned, wired, lined and otherwise stiffened to flare out as much as two feet in all directions, preventing their wearers from sitting down, dancing within arm's reach of a partner, or standing at a bar.

Said a New York buyer: "Wonderful for a queen or a movie star who wants to stand at the head of the stairs and be photographed, but quite useless to any woman who wants to do anything." Dior admitted that he expected to make very little on these styles (at a top price of around $1,000 each). But he had other plans.

New Market. Increased material and labor costs, plus higher taxes, had put the squeeze on Paris designers. Although Lucien Lelong blamed ill health when he closed his shop last month, friends thought his health could have held up if his firm had not--like many others--been operating in the red. Couturiers agreed that survival could be assured only by establishing a rich new market.

That was just what publicity-wise Christian Dior had in mind. He had already obtained quarters on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, signed up a team of U.S. assistants. This fall he hopes to start mass-producing a line of about 90 dresses to wholesale in the U.S. at $59.75 and up. Though they will have "wing" and "cyclone" effects, the dresses will be a "conservative evolution" of his Paris models, designed with one eye on U.S. tastes and the other on the limitations of machine production.

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