All in the Jeans

With the advent of the midi skirt, and nothing whistling but the winter winds, women's fashions seemed to have reached desperate straits. The only way to cross them, clearly, was in pants. Knickers and gauchos, hiphuggers, bell-bottoms and jeans--all are currently outselling dresses of any length. Women in pants are no longer restricted to appearances at the local supermarket but are welcomed at offices, restaurants, theaters and nightclubs around the country.

Wildfire Proportions. From teeny-boppers in tie-dyed numbers to jet-setters in custom-made styles to grandmothers in sensible versions with matching jackets, women of all ages and sizes are wearing pants. Figure faults --unless they occur above the neck--are easily masked. Straight-leg styles make light of heavy thighs, and an accompanying tunic or vest-jacket can do wonders for a wayward waist and confine hips to a minimum. Moreover, pants are warm, comfortable and practical; properly selected and worn with cleverly alternating tops, two pairs of pants can stand in for a full week's wardrobe.

Doing the most standing in these days are jeans--a term that has come to mean any pants that are close-fitting, slash-pocketed and welt-seamed. Not the ordinary old-style, head-'em-off-at-the-gulch variety, but jeans in every color from apricot to zinc and fabrics that range from plain corduroys, velours and gabardines to showier crushed velvets, suedes, leathers and even fur. Boston's Jordan Marsh Co. reports jeans sales at "a crescendo"; Chicago's Saks Fifth Avenue puts the boom at "wildfire proportions, even among older women." Five years ago, there was not a single jeans store in the country. Now there are more than 5,000.

Jeans West, largest of the 430 such stores in Los Angeles, estimates that its chain outlets will sell $10 million worth of jeans this year--triple last year's business. President Neil Norman explains: "On one level, it's identification with what is going on these days, and on another it's just very comfortable to wear jeans."

On a third level, jeans are reasonably priced--if not downright cheap. Lees, for example, makes a velvet-corduroy version for $11 that comes in a dozen colors, is available either straight-legged or bell-bottomed, and is slow to sit out or bag at the knees. There is another advantage. Jeans were originally cut only for men and, inexplicably--despite mass sales to women--still are. Thus there is a choice in length of leg along with waist size, making alterations virtually unnecessary.

Fashion Whimsy. Knickers, too, are currently occupying as prestigious a position in women's wardrobes as they once did in men's. No longer the saggy, baggy trademark of golfers, aging croquet enthusiasts and Jackie Coogan, the style has undergone a thorough rejuvenation, first at the virtuoso hands of couturiers Valentino and St. Laurent, now by just about every fashion house in the business. Macy's recently ran a full-page ad for "Happy Legs" knickers and sold 75 pairs in the first two hours after the store opened next morning.

Other pants are also covering for the future of the midi. Gauchos, the wide-cut dress-length trousers, had a brief spurt of popularity in the autumn. Paris' highly heralded "hot pants"--short shorts that make a good stab at compensating leg watchers for the loss of the mini--are expected to do a long, long business come spring. But for now, the rage is mainly for jeans. Boutique Owner and Designer Frankie Welch, whose pants sales account for 60% of her business, regards the current madness as the ultimate in fashion whimsy. "I'm from Georgia," she says. "And down there it was the farm boys who wore jeans. Now I am selling them in elegant velvets to women for $80." Mrs. Edmund Howar,* a Washington society leader, took the madness one step further with her appearance at a party last month in a pair of workmen's natural-colored overalls. Her purse, just as naturally, was a tool kit.

* Not to be confused with Barbara Howar, an equally dazzling party scene-stealer.

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