A dressing down

8220;The eye is looking for something new, and so is the psyche,8221; Anne Slowey, the fashion news director of Elle magazine, said last week from the set of Fashionista, a new fashion reality show in which she will play herself, a fashion editor, only meaner.

Now, Slowey added8212;meaning not now, exactly, but months from now, in September8212;the thing it will be necessary to own in order to appear fashionable will be 8220;the pant.8221; 8220;The first hint of chill in the air, and the full-legged, pleated high- and low-waisted legions will be out in the urban jungle,8221; said Slowey. The expiration date for the dress, she claimed, 8220;is end of August.8221;

This prediction will come as a surprise, perhaps, to retail analysts like the folks at NPD Group, who termed 2007 the year of the dress, pointing to sales of more than 5 billion in the 12 months that ended last April.

It is also, for what it8217;s worth, unwelcome news to me. That is because, unlike Slowey, I am not eager for women to become 8220;a little more hard-core, a little more androgynous, a little more butch.8221; Yes, gender play is fun, and trousers are a useful wardrobe default for the woman in business. But you will have to concede that for flattering a woman8217;s body nothing is quite like a dress.

The cycle is turning, Solomon said, but it has not happened yet. And so, for those of us who take pleasure in the sight of a woman in a summer dress walking along, her dress caught in a faint breeze, there is still time.

Or as actor Everett Sloane said in Citizen Kane, 8220;A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn8217;t think he8217;d remember.8221; Sloane spoke for a lot of us in recollecting a long-ago day and a girl he had seen on a ferry for barely an instant. 8220;A white dress she had on,8221; he said. 8220;She didn8217;t see me at all, I8217;ll bet a month hasn8217;t gone by since that I haven8217;t thought of that girl.8221;
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