The Summer Uniform: Short, Sweet and Cool
She was white on white
so blonde on blonde
and her long, long legs
how I used to beg
to dance with her
SHORT AND SHORTER Clockwise from right, Loring Randolph in a ballooning minidress; Sarah Howard in casual stripes; Jessica Hebert in a bubble-style mini; Ying Yue Li, jumper-style with stripes; Stefanie Raptis, over tights; Kathleen Dragoon in trimmed eyelet; Jen Brill in a flirty minidress by No. 6; Collette LoVullo, out for the evening in a micromini from Tibi; Courtnay Pettigrew, discreet with a tank top underneath, and Lirany Vasquez in pristine ruffles. Safe until you drop your lipstick.
WRITTEN by Patti Smith as a mash note to Edie Sedgwick, she of the cropped hair and even more radically cropped hemlines, those words ought to resonate today with the many women seemingly intent on achieving the long-stemmed Edie look, one enhanced by dresses so doll-like and diminutive that some scarcely pass as a dress at all.
Capsule-size frocks reminiscent of the 1960’s are being resurrected by current pop princesses like Sienna Miller, who portrays Ms. Sedgwick, Andy Warhol’s ill-fated muse, in a forthcoming film, and by her fans. They are this year’s buoyant summer uniform, the hemlines climbing up and up to keep pace with soaring temperatures.
“Dresses — we can’t make them short enough,’’ said Karin Bereson, a stylist and a designer of a line called No. 6, with dresses that end, abruptly, just below the hips. Ms. Bereson and her partner, Morgan Yakus, who own the No. 6 boutique in downtown Manhattan, maintain that microdresses have wrought a spell on fashion’s early adapters, latter-day Dolly Girls who have, wittingly or otherwise, revived the childlike look introduced in the youthquake era by the London fashion legend Mary Quant.
“You want to talk about the minidress — that’s all that these women are wearing day and night,’’ said Michael Fink, the fashion director of Saks Fifth Avenue, where labels like Marc by Marc Jacobs, See by Chloé, Nanette Lepore, Vince and Joie are robust sellers. A Chloé trapeze mini quickly sold out.
“This is just a new generation discovering the microdress,” Mr. Fink said. “For them it’s a fashion statement. This is their find. But it’s becoming mainstream.’’
Some of these young women are drawn to the mini’s simplicity and naïve charm. Bubble-shaped variations like those sold by the hundreds at Urban Outfitters are captivating to Andie Tham, 24, an artist visiting Manhattan from Melbourne, Australia, who wore hers over black tights. It put her in mind, she said, of “the little bubble outfits my mom used to make for me as a kid,’’ some that matched those on her Cabbage Patch doll.
Loring Randolph, 25, who works at an art gallery in Chelsea, said her ballooning jersey microdress, which she sometimes wears with a tiny jacket, was an expression of freedom. “But it does get unwanted attention, ’’ she acknowledged.
And therein lies the paradox. Microdresses are provocative, sheared to heights that border on indecency. “They are statement-making, that’s for sure,” Ms. Bereson said. “They push boundaries.”
At the same time, they are curiously chaste and Sunday-school sweet, confected of white cotton eyelet or lace and in candy-tone prints. Strip away the underpinnings that accompany them on cooler days, and they are no more or less insolent than Pippi Longstocking, concealing just enough skin to ensure that the wearer will not be arrested.
Shoppers’ enthusiasm for minidresses has given a push to dress sales over all, and, merchants say, they are showing signs of outdistancing skirts, shorts and skinny jeans as a summer hit. These minxlike abbreviated styles are “very healthy for the dress business,’’ Mr. Fink said. “They allow it to rejuvenate itself.’’
Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s, where short daytime dresses that double as tunics are selling well, predicted that come fall, women would be snapping up more glittery resort and early spring interpretations from designers like Michael Kors and Tory Burch.
In the meantime they are descending on Bloomingdale’s and chains like Urban Outfitters and Banana Republic, and logging on to dress Web sites like eDressMe.com. (At that site, microdresses have made up 10 percent of spring sales, said Joanne Stoner, its founder.) They are choosing from an expansive selection of looks that vary from tiny trapeze dresses and baby-doll smocks similar to those paraded on the spring runways at Chloé, Missoni, Dolce & Gabbana and Anna Sui to more clingy, tubular silhouettes patterned after vintage Azzedine Alaïa.
“This is not the dress as your mother wore it,” Ms. Solomon said. This mini is more like sportswear, she said, versatile enough to complement bottle-bronzed legs, or to be layered over leggings. More compellingly, it has a transgenerational appeal, bought by girls in their teens and by older women, too, who adapt them as tunics over longer skirts or trousers.
“I’m loving the short length right now,’’ said Ms. Burch, the designer. “It’s more like a T-shirt, and it definitely travels well.’’
The new microdresses are also beneficiaries of a swing in fashion from the voluminous multitiered peasant skirts espoused last summer by the likes of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and their haute bohemian following to a lighter, less fussy, more emphatically girlie shape. Accessorized with ballet slippers, Greek sandals or cork wedgies, they raise few eyebrows.
“The look is less Paris Hilton than Jane Birkin,’’ Ms. Bereson said, referring to the British model, pop star and London “it” girl of the 60’s. “It’s not va-va-voom sexy. It’s more about being daring and confident, cool and chic.’’
¶ Thursday, July 13, 2006
