Going Public, Coming Out on Top

When Carla Francis had finished dressing for a Dallas dinner party, her lawyer husband James took one look at her laced-up Merry Widow costume and expostulated, "Mercy! Are you going out that way?" "It does call attention," agreed Carla. "But Yves Saint Laurent says it's O.K."

The garment in question was a corselette, which earlier generations of women wore for "support"--under a dress. Now, along with the camisole, which used to be the slip's better half, the corselette has gone public and come out on top. Even in staid Boston, Saint Laurent's revealing, sleeveless corselettes have been selling like $140 hotcakes at his Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller outlets. Camisoles are just as popular. Says a buyer at Chicago's Marshall Field: "We are selling all we have." In Los Angeles, Designer Lore Caulfield says that demand for her slinky satin camisoles has been so overwhelming that she has had to ration them. In Palm Beach, where the Martha shop has had instant success with corselettes and camisoles, Co-Owner Lynn Manulis calls them "a very provocative above-the-table look." Joanne Stroud, professor of literature and psychology at the University of Dallas, bought two Saint Laurent corselettes. Her mother was shocked. Says Stroud: "I think she got the idea I'd become a cancan girl."

The camisole `a la mode started in New York about three years ago, when Designer Fernando Sanchez introduced fluffy white tops and accompanying triple-flounced petticoats. His customers today include Cher, Diana Ross, Barbara Sinatra and Marisa Berenson. Calvin Klein has come out with soft, scal-loped-edged camisoles for summer.

The reason for the great coming-out party, says Carole Stein, a Manhattan-based Christian Dior executive, is that "women are basically sick and tired of looking like men. Clothes have been so ungodly tailored." According to Designer Caulfield, the new look's popularity has a lot to do with the financial side of women's lib. "A working woman can afford to buy herself a $40 camisole, and she will reward herself with one." The look is also a symbol of today's more open sexuality, Caulfield maintains. "When a young woman gets dressed in the morning, she doesn't know where she's going to get undressed." For that matter, when she wears a corselette or a camisole, some observers may not be able to tell whether the lady is dressed or not.

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