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: Tuxedo junction Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 15:23:03 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;WAY OF LIFE \HD Tuxedo junction \SH WOMEN STICK OUT NECKS \BY Ann Geracimos \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Blame "Dracula," if you like: The movie's popularity helps shift attention in the fashion spectrum to what is worn on the chest and neck and makes us aware of perversity in nearly every form. Not that designers hadn't foreseen the trend with the renewed emphasis in last year's styles on menswear for women, called feminswear in some circles. Some people call it cross-dressing - hence, a perverse exchange of gender's traditional modes. That doesn't seem fair to styles created explicitly for women with details borrowed from the men's department. A Santa Fe, N.M., gallery owner who turned up in a tuxedo by Isaac Mizrahi at a formal dinner at the National Gallery of Art recently wasn't trying to be perverse but comfortable. She had on a regulation black jacket and trousers with white shirt and tie - without any jewelry to clutter up her "statement." She made a striking picture among the lush fabrics and sequins worn by most of the other women. Technically, the tuxedo is defined as a man's dinner jacket or semiformal evening suit. According to Fairchild's Dictionary of Fashion, the style was introduced by Griswold P. Lorillard in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., in 1886 as a way of suggesting the adoption of the Prince of Wales' velvet smoking jacket for semiformal occasions. At the time, few thought it ever would suit women as well. They didn't reckon with 20th-century custom, and women's move into the so-called men's world in a big way. World War I saw women adopt trousers for work in factories. The habit stuck, with some occasional setbacks. Today we think of women in pantsuits as a natural evolution, even if female lawyers in certain venues dare not appear in them before judges and juries. After work, anything goes. This season's variation is the tuxedo look. Naturally, the female cut is more curvaceous, with a fitted waist and torso. A couple at last Saturday's DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation for AIDS) party sported identical tuxedo suits - only her shirt had a plunging neckline under the gold lame bow tie. Other tricks to soften the masculine: Buy a bright blue, green or white version, if you can find one. Wear the jacket over a bodysuit. Find the sexiest high heels you can. Put on a lace camisole or an extravagantly ruffled top. Decorate with pins or a choker. (Rhinestone donkeys are in fashion now.) Ann Taylor stores advertise an ivory wool evening suit with a double-breasted jacket, priced separately for a total $386. The chain's tuxedo jacket, in black, is $198. More upscale is the Ralph Lauren Womenswear treatment: a black crepe "Claridge" jacket with tails, for $2,000, over a silk wool jersey jodphur ($550). The truly daring eliminate the jacket and wear only the hint of a white pique sleeveless and shoulderless button-down shirt front that tops a black short pouf skirt by Tom and Linda Platt. This fancy number - a far cry from Dracula's domain - retails for $310 and is available at Saks Fifth Avenue stores. 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