The Minneapolis Look

Over the past several years, a dizzying variety of fashions has tripped across the American scene. Gypsies, carhops, farmerettes and Hindu goddesses have all been the Look, more or less, at one time or another. It was a splendid trip for the under-25s, but their elders retired almost unanimously into pantsuits, or simply brazened it out in the Little Black Dress that has reigned as the basic classic for more than a generation. Now, as autumn clothes fill department store racks, the classic look seems to be newly fashionable.

This fall, American women are destined for crisply cut blazers, tailored and pleated skirts, Argyle sweaters, traditional tweeds, meltons and flannels. Colors will be bright and clear. After the mini-midi debacle of last year, hemlines will generally hover cautiously around the knee.

One reason for the great turnabout is a dawning realization that women who have money to spend want clothes that are comfortable and smart. Says Stan Herman, designer for Mr. Mort: "Business was so rotten last year that we began to look around for the answer --and the answer was to give the lady out in Middle America what she wants. It's a salable look." Manhattan Designer Bill Blass is even more emphatic. "I have just returned from Minneapolis," he reports, "a city I consider a good barometer of the mood of the country, and I found women hungry for clothes.

They just haven't been buying, but now they're tempted." Blass, whose forte is the tailored look, says that "we learned last year the best we can do is make suggestions." Elaine Honest, vice president and merchandise manager for designer fashions at Manhattan's Bonwit Teller, agrees: "We're ready for some sensible clothes. We've had every ethnic look possible over the past year."

Funk and Grace. Within the classic range, there will be variations. "We are not a socialist country," says Designer Donald Brooks, "so why should there be a single look?" Brooks, in line with his own designs, predicts that girl watchers will be observing "marvelous-looking girls in styles ranging from the deep and great funk to the beginnings of pride, elegance, grace and femininity."

There are only a few total dissenters to the classic concept, and one is Giorgio di Sant'Angelo, who is something of a constant rebel. "Fashion people think it will save the dress business, but it ain't gonna save it," he says. "Who wants an old-fashioned dress? Women won't buy the same dress they bought in the '40s and pay three times as much for it." As his alternative, Sant'Angelo is offering bright colors in an Oriental ambience. "My new clothes have a feeling of the Chinese," he says. "But modern Chinese--very geometric."

For those who look to Paris instead of Peking for their guides to style, however, the classic look seems sure to prevail at least through next spring. The midsummer showings fell almost unanimously into what Women's Wear Daily calls the "civilized" look. Ohrbach Fashion Consultant Sydney Gittler declared that the Paris clothes "were the most exciting clothes of the season. Seventh Avenue will have a picnic with them next spring" (referring to the fact that designers work six months ahead of schedule). As if to back up Gittler, a number of Seventh Avenue manufacturers scurried onto Paris-bound planes--even though they are operating on tight budgets--once word of the new styles reached them.

Generally what Paris had to offer was a somewhat more elegant, sophisticated --and costly--version of the Minneapolis look. Fitted coats were back in season --even the full ones fell from narrow tops or were tightly belted. One new trend sure to appear in the U.S.: shorter coats in various forms, from Yves St. Laurent's Chinese padded coolie coat to Lanvin's not quite full-length duffel coat and Givenchy's ponchos and shawls. Evening dresses were back, the grander ones--Dior's 30 yds. of chiffon--inspired, some said, by the imminent celebration of Iran's 2,500th birthday. Day length was firmly around the knee. Suits were fitted, with fairly long jackets over flared or pleated skirts. High boots were out, but high--though not necessarily narrow--heels were back in, which will possibly mean that a whole new generation will have to learn to walk in them.

Maidens in Uniform. Teen-agers and the young twenties who say they no longer believe in fashion can be expected to stick with the bird-of-paradise styles of the past year and even come up with some new ones. Among other things, they will probably pick up more enthusiastically than ever the fad for olive-drab, uniform-style garb now the rage of teeny-bopper Europe. But for a time at least, the mainstream of the fashion industry is directed toward Minneapolis' Nicollet Avenue and its even lesser-known environs.

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