Our sort of journalism at TIME is not greatly subject to seasonal cycles, but there are some predictable moments every year. With the first whiff of winter, editors--who are not above escapism--start thinking of stories about cruises or resorts. With the first anticipation of winter's end, they begin to consider spring fashions. This year we decided that the success of the American look--and the remarkably attractive and varied new designs by leading American fashion makers--deserved cover story treatment.

The color illustrations, including the Halston-clad model on the cover and the four pages accompanying the story, were researched by Mary Themo, a longtime observer of the fashion world, and photographed by TIME'S Eddie Adams, a veteran of many political and combat assignments, who found the chance to work in and around the fashion battlefields of Seventh Avenue a welcome change. The reporting for the story was begun weeks ago by New York Correspondent Eileen Shields. She confesses to having once been "a slave of fashion," but uncomfortable about her bondage at times--"especially," she says, "during the hot-pants rage of 1971." No problem with today's less self-conscious styles, however.

Reporter-Researcher Georgia Harbison agrees. She too interviewed many fashion designers for the story--on one occasion while wearing blue jeans and a sweater. Bad form? Evidently not. "At one point, I asked a designer if he could cite a perfect example of current American style. He answered, 'You are, darling.' "

The story was written by Senior Writer Michael Demarest and edited by Leon Jaroff. Demarest's experience with fashion predates the American look and the miniskirt. In fact, it goes back to his boyhood days in London when his mother, he says, "would occasionally drag me to fittings at her dressmaker's." In Demarest's recollection, "these were marvelous occasions. I knew nothing about fashion and cared less, but the vision of half-clad ladies gliding mysteriously to and fro was something to treasure during the long months of all-male boarding schools."

"In time," he adds, "I even learned to appreciate the clothes."

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