Fashion Takes a More Demure Turn for Fall 2004

With midriff-baring halters, strapless tops, form-fitting tees and super low-rise bottoms dominating the fashion scene in recent seasons, there truly has been very little left for women to leave to the imagination.
Fall fashion has developed a distinct propensity for propriety, which means the return of elegant suits, evening dresses redolent of the 20s and 30s, and the return of some seriously nostalgic flourishes.
When Donatella Versace decides that women cannot live by super skimpy red-carpet dresses alone and dedicates a major part of her fall collection to sober suits, you know change is in the air. Tom Ford, the man whose success was intimately connected to his ability to sell sex. His final collections for both Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent were about wonderful craftsmanship as much as flagrant sexual provocation, if not more so. At Gucci: intricately worked and, by his standards, rather modest evening dresses that trailed the floor. At Yves Saint Laurent: the sensual impact of a satin jacket with sculpted pagoda shoulders.
So, if your wardrobe idols are britney Spears, Paris Hilton and "dirrty" Christina, sorry to be the one to break the news fashionistas...THROW all those teeny clothes to the BACK OF YOUR CLOSETS and BRING OUT the tweed jackets, buttoned and belted jackets, narrow pencil skirts, fur stoles and shrugs designed t nuzzle the shoulders, and high-heeled bootees that, in the right light, and on the right foot, could conceivably look a little kinky.





<===Designer: Emmanuel Ungaro