S for Shape

The news from Paris last week, as French high-fashion designers called the coming season's styles, was shape. Last winter's flapper rage, the short, unfitted boop-a-doop look, had been inaugurated by Dior's A-shape; this year the alphabet has yielded a softer, swirlier letter as a theme--S. At the end of a week studded with the usual fashion-show crises (Red Cross ambulances stood by for crush victims, models fainted as Zippers caught, Designer Michel Goma was rushed to the hospital with appendicitis), the trend was clear: this year's styles--though not yet ready to hug--make tentative overtures toward the female figure.

The new lines, "the oblique," "the zig-zag," and "the spiral," work at creating what the designers call "body-conscious shape." Oblique seams, side fastenings and spiral back wrappings encircle the body; simple little dresses are diagonally, often dizzily, detailed by wildly flying panels, bias cuts, tricky scarf necklines. Even Dior's Marc Bohan, who tends to flout the trends, does away with the bulky silhouette; although he concentrates less on S-lines than his colleagues, Bohan's fashions are the tightest, slenderest, most feminine of all. His decidedly youthful designs feature slim, high-bosomed bodices, gently flared skirts, wide cinch-belts and narrow shoulders.

Line Spies. Cardin shortens his suit jackets and flares his skirts, even forsakes his trademark swing coats for a slimmer, fitted model. Gres, who has done more through the years for draped gowns than anyone since Phidias, keeps the soft shoulder line and low-set sleeve but lets the waistline wander obliquely from a high empire front to a low back, includes six "intimacy dresses" (lounging costumes with harem pants). Jean Patou puts skirt upon skirt, gathers them all together at what is decidedly a natural waistline.

Crahay, of the house of Ricci, plunges decolletage both fore and aft (either one or the other, not both at once), swirls one-armed capes around suits and coats. Balmain's tubular sheaths stick to the body like spies but turn coy beneath coverup chiffon overlayers. Goma's collection--the theme is "looping the loop"-- shows wasp waists and a high bustline. Griffe, who claims to have "rediscovered woman," calls his shape the "jet line," fans permanent pleating out from just underneath the arms or from mid-front and back to the hem. Jacques Heim's spiral silhouette whirls across the body with slanting and circular seams; coats are flat in front with voluminous gusts of cape. Guy LaRoche fits his dresses loosely, lets his diagonal seams gently tube the body; his sleeveless evening gowns spin to the floor, cut a low V in back.

Designers' colors for winter sound like a low-calorie diet--carrot, eggplant, prune, cherry and mint. Fabrics range from ordinary reversible wools, suede and leather to delicately worked jerseys, crepe, chiffon and much velvet. The favorite by far is fur--Maggy Rouff shows an all-beaver skirt, Patou an all-nutria dress, and Balmain (a sort of latter-day Gregor Mendel) crosses persian lamb with tweed for a hybrid stadium plaid.

Ivan the Terrible. Accessories are as full of movement as the clothes themselves. Hats are young and flattering, tend to frame the face instead of sweeping down to smother it. Ricci's "Ivan the Terrible" model is a fat acorn of fur, and Cardin's "Davy Crockett" curls an entire fox (in brown, red or black) around the head. Feet, as well as bodies, are treated considerately once more after seasons of cramping toes into shoes that darted into stiletto points or simply blunted off the second joints, the rounded-toe look is back--although Dior's Roger Vivier keeps his shoes squared.

While two fashion greats, Balenciaga and Givenchy, are still to be heard from, there is little even they can do to temper the new S-shape. But when the conventional alphabet is exhausted, tomorrow's woman may very well look like a la mode.

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