The Y's Have It

Shakespeare, who grumbled that "the fashion wears out more apparel than the man," would have had much more to complain about in the 20th century, in which fashion wears out fashion. Only last fall, Paris Fashion Czar Christian Dior flatly decreed the "H" look for women. Indignantly rejected by U.S. women and their admirers, the bosomless H yielded last spring to Dior's full-skirted, slim-shouldered "A" line, which treated the bust as poor but honest.

Last week, as Paris couturiers ended their fall showings and went on vacation, the dominant new look was Dior's "Y" shape, a broad-shouldered, high-waisted evolution of the tunic, which recognizes the bosom for what it is. This "sheathier sheath," as Vogue calls it, was either starkly simple or loaded with as many optional extras as a new automobile. Items (see cuts): a Dior coat shaped like an upside-down Coca-Cola bottle; a Dior maternal-looking midriff in a Y evening gown; the trussed-up look of a Givenchy dress with derriere drawstrings; Givenchy's sausage-sleeved street dress.

How much does this Parisian alphabet game influence the $8.5 billion-a-year U.S. fashion industry? More than ever, says David Nemerov, chairman of Manhattan's Russeks, one of the first stores in the country to get Paris copies on its counters each season. "There is tremendous interest in what Paris does," says Nemerov. "Otherwise, we would be featuring uniforms." Most buyers were enthusiastic about the Y look. In one of their most successful seasons ever, the big salons were picked as clean as bargain basements.

Of more than 1,000 buyers who attended the Paris showings, 140 represented U.S. concerns. Many were there to pay up to $400 for an original suit or coat (considered successful if it sells to 100 buyers), as much as $3,000 for such creations as Balmain's elaborately embroidered Versailles evening gown. Reproduced under license, they will eventually reach smart fashion stores across the country. But U.S. fashion experts do not make the Paris pilgrimage solely to buy high-style clothes for high-income customers. They go to scan the new silhouettes, get ideas for accessories, materials and colors (black will be their favorite color this fall) for adaptation to low-priced lines.

In a year or so all but the most extreme French ideas introduced in the past month will have filtered down from fashion's summit to U.S. closets. They will be modified in the filtering, but their effect will be there. When Paris comes out with anything as easy to take as the Y shape, it immediately has "a big influence," admits Edwin Goodman of Manhattan's high-fashion Bergdorf Goodman. He adds: "But you won't get any American designers to admit they have copied anything."

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