SARI GUERON has the sort of fashion antennas some other designers would kill for. Mostly they vibrate in response “to what my friends want to wear,” Ms. Gueron said. As those friends primp for the rounds of cocktails and dinner parties that herald the holiday season, they “will want to feel sexy,” she predicted, “though not in a way that hits you over the head.”
“Sexy” is a notion she equates with a modestly scooped neckline, a gently accented waist and fabrics like satin or taffeta, rich with a hint of luster. “When it comes to party dressing, people are making more of an effort,” she said. “The look is definitely more dressy than it used to be.”
Fashion, it appears, is in the throes of one of its inevitable mood swings, the years of casual, sketchily improvised party dressing giving way to a perceptibly more formal look. “The days of jeans and a dressy top are long gone,” said Lela Rose, a young Texan whose tent dresses and pinafores seem conceived for steel magnolias. “This is a much more feminine time.”
Those observations chime with a consensus among merchants, designers and young style-setters. They interpret “feminine” to encompass gem-tone velvet blazers, streamlined tuxedo suits and even shorts — and that uncontested hit of the season, the dress.
The resurgence of the full-on party dress signifies “a return to refinement,” said Jeffrey Kalinsky, the founder of the Jeffrey shops in New York and Atlanta. Variations, which began arriving in stores earlier this month in a profusion of fabrics and colors, include a buttercup yellow silk faille Empire style by Prada, a taffeta mini with petal sleeves by Thakoon and a crisp silk faille trapeze by Oscar de la Renta, with a fanciful bow at the nape.
Women are responding to the candidly flirtatious, festive mood of such dresses. Celerie Kemble, a decorator and New York society fixture, has jettisoned the wispy tops and slim trousers that were her party uniform a year ago for dresses with moderately full skirts and rounded necklines, mostly in deep colors, sometimes threaded with metallic embroidery. She tends to wear them with patent leather shoes. The combination makes for “a sweeter look,” she said, “with the glossy feeling of a Christmas ornament.”
Which is not to say gaudy or cloying. Ms. Kemble subscribes to a brand of subtle luxury that has adherents on both coasts. “There is a trend here to dress in a way that is clean and simple,” said John Eshaya, the fashion director of Ron Herman, an outpost of hip in Los Angeles. “We don’t need the flashbulbs. The only things that should sparkle are your earrings.”
In keeping with that dictum, plenty of women are toning down the luster of a satin or taffeta dress with a light cashmere cardigan, balancing its airiness with flat shoes or chunky jeweled sandals. The look is buoyant, not uptight. “We are not talking about the simple sheath dress that we equate with an Audrey Hepburn,” said Gregg Andrews, the fashion director for Nordstrom.
At Lord & Taylor, the most sought-after styles are emphatically youthful and sensuous, said LaVelle Olexa, the store’s fashion director. Women are buying silk jersey wrap dresses and knee-length or thigh-grazing cocktail dresses, elongated variations on summer’s popular Mod-inspired swing dress. Customers of all ages find those shapes flattering and unexpectedly liberating, Ms. Olexa said.
Indeed, styles like Rebecca Taylor’s brocade cocktail dress, draped and gathered beneath the bust, or Marc Jacobs’s ballooning mini combine an ingénue freshness with a forgiving fit that reflects younger women’s growing insistence on ease. Ms. Gueron said her clients, many of whom are in their 20s or early 30s, feel that “if something is too fitted, it suggests that you’re trying too hard.
“People that age think you look cooler when you’re comfortable.”
