The Word from Paris

The key word in Paris, wrote the New York Herald Tribune's smart Eugenia Sheppard. was "sex." The prim Times sidestepped and called it "femininity." Last week, as the high-fashion houses of Paris put on display their latest notions of feminine architecture, it was clear that bosoms, knees, waists and hips were back. With that psychic unanimity that seems to animate the Paris fashion world, just about every big designer apparently had decided that the days of loose-fitting, shape-hiding dresses are gone.

As always, the pressagents were hard at work on the swarming fashion reporters and editors. With an eye on Elizabeth Taylor's movie Cleopatra, designer Guy Laroche imposed "the Cleopatra look" on his models--square hairdo, elongated eyes and all. One publicist outdid herself by describing a new line as "a silhouette that looks like a poop deck."

To emphasize the sexy look, Jacques Esterel showed--for low-slung pants--a tasseled gold button that glints, eyelike, in the navel. Madame Gres won top engineering honors for a bareback bikini that anybody can make at home with three or four pot holders and a long, thin necktie. For evening wear, Gres grew more conservative: one closely draped jersey dress covered the midriff completely, except for two good-sized diamond-shaped picture windows just south of the rib cage. Jules Crahay of Nina Ricci finally closed the neckline of one dress at the navel. Michel Goma and other designers offered evening-gown backs bare down to the coccyx. Patou loaded down daytime costumes with shoulder bows, capelets, streaming stoles and back skirt panels. Dior's Marc Bohan, however, departed only slightly from the closed-Dior shape of the past. Although he lowered belts until they fetched up on the hips, Bohan stubbornly stuck to a squared-off silhouette ("Dior has squared the fanny," said Sheppard).

Most designers snugged in waistlines and billowed skirts, perhaps to allow freedom to Twist. Everybody had his say about hemlines: Laroche and Cardin lowered theirs; Desses, Patou, Crahay. Goma and Bohan stayed within striking distance of the kneecap. Other touches: almost every designer stuck ruffles on his models, snapped wide belts around everything--even evening dresses (Balmain, who dresses Thailand's Queen Sirikit, belted a wedding gown). Apart from sex, the only other area of general agreement in Paris was color. Apricot was very big, followed by orange, yellow and the so-called sherbet colors.

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