Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Headline Article Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;WAY OF LIFE;IN STYLE \BY Ann Geracimos \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES INAUGURATION FEVER The fever is peaking. Just One Affair, a women's formal wear rental firm at 5101 Wisconsin Ave. NW, is selling a T-shirt with a woman's torso silhouetted on the front and the words: "Have you planned your affair with Bill Clinton? Inaugural Week, January 18-23, 1993." The back lists the firm's name under the phrase "every woman deserves. . . . " Will this attract or repel clients? HAIR DOS AND DON'TS Exulting over the prospect of "three to six thousand new faces" in town - most of whom, undoubtedly, will be men - Georgetown's Jacques Dessange hair and beauty salon is expanding early in the new year into larger quarters down the street on Wisconsin Avenue. "And that doesn't include girlfriends, boyfriends, and relatives," says gleeful co-owner Jean-Pierre Safati. Like nearly every other business around, the salon is doing its best to "do" Hillary Clinton; Christophe, the California stylist said to be helping her at inaugural time, once was associated with Dessange, whose main base is New York and Paris. It won't even try to lure Tipper Gore, who is said to be faithful to another Georgetown hair-care operation. Yves Durif, the Dessange New York style director, showed his hand at the local branch this week for employees. New modes to come, he said, are softer, shorter and asymmetrical - "free, like the fashion" - and not the long and stringy looks associated with hippies and grunge. (He created hair styles for Oscar de la Renta's more ladylike spring/summer '93 show.) "Wigs and grease have been done to death." Pin curls are in. "Cutting hair is like cutting material for a dress" is how he explains the Dessange method, done with razor-sharp scissors finished in Japan. "You do the general shape, cutting from underneath rather than from top down, and the details later. The comb is the ruler; the scissor, the pen." (Hair talk seldom makes sense no matter who's talking, but Frenchmen somehow sound better doing it.) New York - America overall - sets hair trends, he believes; Europe, and Paris in particular, simply expand and refine what happens here; the downside is that superstar models too often dictate to stylists, and the stylists then become celebrities with inflated egos and prices to match. If we read the future from top down and make hats as portents of what is to come, hair won't show much or even seem to matter at all. The most popular headgear in New York spring shows was the cap - either extended like a sock hat, or worn close to the skull. At least that is what the grunge-makers are pushing. But like grunge rock itself - considered a Seattle invention taken up by youth purveyors everywhere - anything goes As for hair in the "holly-days" to come, the word in some circles is up - and upbeat. But don't expect Hillary to conform. Glamour girls are taking their cue from Hollywood stars of the '40s and '50s. (Stylists these days will do or say anything to get clients back in the salons.) What's next? Feminism with a pretty face? FASHION ACTION News that Dominican-born American designer Oscar de la Renta is to take over the creative helm at Balmain in Paris doesn't indicate a dramatic turn for that respected French house. Nor will it mean giving up his own label. Like Karl Lagerfeld, who does multiple lines, he simply will work harder. Mr. de la Renta, 59, trained long ago at the house of Balenciaga and later was Antonio Castillo's top assistant at Lanvin. Local luminary Ann Buchwald once was a publicist for Balmain in Paris. Retailers predict a bonus, if not a boom, season ahead with gift-giving the big boost. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM