The New Old Look

In Paris, U.S. buyers last week crowded into Dressmaker Christian Dior's salon for the spring showing. They hoped once again to be agreeably shocked by the man whose long hemlines last year helped create the New Look (TIME, Sept. 15). As the first models went by, the buyers gasped. Dior had veered away from the New Look.

Most of his daytime dresses stopped at the calf, about where they had been two years ago. One black silk number called the Quartier Latin barely covered the model's knees. Dior, who boasts he does the biggest U.S. business in Paris, thought he knew what U.S. women wanted.

Despite Dior's deviation, other Paris dressmakers grimly carried on the New Look's long skirts, pinched waists, and other handicaps to normal activity. Example: heavy "riding habit" skirts that weigh six pounds. The hobble skirt was everywhere, usually split to the knee to leave the wearers some power of locomotion.

Parisian necklines, having gone about as far south as they could go, stayed there; a few new afternoon-dress necklines opened perilously as far down as the waistline. Explained one fashion expert: "A woman has to be naked somewhere. If you cover her at the bottom, you must uncover her at the top."

The dressmakers tried hard to turn out eye-catching eccentricities. Dior showed knee-length gaiters (see cut). A Schiaparelli handout gushed: "What could be more heartening to a world in crisis than a face veil tumbled over with roses?" Another Schiaparelli heartener: fire-engine red stockings shouting out from under petticoats that hung six inches below dress hems. Jacques Fath had his own private eccentricity; he slit his narrow skirts up the rear, to a point well above the back of the knees. From the bow, one of his bridal dresses looked as sleek as a racing sloop. Viewed from the stern, with fantail cleft, it looked more like a minesweeper.

Like Dior's new skirts, Paris prices were up (25 to 50%). Molyneux, who had tried to keep his prices down for the benefit of his big, pound-pinched British trade, asked 54,000 francs ($176 at the new free exchange rate) for a simple black afternoon dress, while Dior's simplest day dress was 62,000 francs ($202). But materials were finally getting back to prewar standards. Sighed Molyneux's directress: "So marvelous to know the customers won't come back screaming the day after a heavy rain!"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.