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Women's 1999 Fall Fashion Preview: Fall's finest splash color, patterns or texture onto a canvas of classic cuts
Sunday, September 12, 1999 By LaMont Jones, Post-Gazette Fashion Writer
With a brand-new millennium waiting expectantly on the horizon, fashion designers decided to make fall 1999 a roll call of some of recent history's most popular styles.
That should be good news for every woman, because it means a tremendous array of chic cuts, bold patterns, vivid colors and luxurious fabrics available everywhere from Saks Fifth Avenue to Syms. Most collections for Y2K parties and spring 2000 are already complete, thanks to fashion's year-ahead cycle. But fall's selections are evidence that designers just couldn't let the glitz and glamour wait until the final weeks of the year.
You'll be glad they didn't. As the curtain descends on the final autumn of the 1900s, designers bid adieu to the minimalism of recent years. Fashion-forward zooms fast-forward from retro chic to future sleek, blurring cultural boundaries with mixed and versatile ethnic looks while maintaining function and balance.
"I'm looking forward to fall," says Lisa Gloninger, owner of Cajoli in Aspinwall. "I love the fall colors. The styles are very feminine but easy to wear, tailored but not tight."
Indeed, the season's clean, spare lines are complemented by rich, vibrant colors and lush, varied textures. Styles are classic and modern, urban and rustic, body-conscious and draping, tailored and unconstructed.
A contradiction? We don't think so. The mergers are seamless, with an emphasis on combining chic separates to come up with comfortably coordinated layered outfits that are playful, feminine, easy to wear and unmistakably individual. The results are timeless ensembles, attractive separates pulled together as if effortlessly. And lines are blurring between career and casual in ways that make it OK for a woman to appear dramatic, sexy and exotic any time of day.
1999 Fall Fashion Preview: Comfortable shoes are back, and it's cause to celebrate
To get with the exciting program, courageous career women will decide to give the power suits a well-deserved rest. Dresses paired with blazers and skirts with sweater sets or soft, pretty blouses are the new corporate look for the working woman who is chic and still wants to look like she means business.
Hems on dresses and skirts are reaching for the floor this season, with ankle-length and calf-length trying to crowd minis out of the picture. Suits are sporting longer jackets, often with a single-button closure, and pants can be wide or narrow with a flat front.
There are more comfort and boldness in career wear and desk-to-dinner outfits as Ellen Tracy and other designers deliver unconstructed jackets with soft shoulders. Colors are bold, from billiard green to garnet red. Styles are daring, such as single-button jackets cropped at the waist. All look great with flat-front, wide-leg black pants or a sexy, long black skirt with inverted pleats by Mondi.
Simple shapes are the key. And so is variety.
Shirts and tops run a wide spectrum, from cotton, fitted button-fronts cropped at the waist to alluring silk halter tops and polyester-blend camisoles with eye-catching detailing. In fact, many lines are rich with design subtleties that can be played up or down.
Sweaters and other knit tops come sleeveless or with sleeves that are full-length, three-quarter-length or short. Jackets with bracelet-length sleeves, by the way, are a nice new trend at Bailey & Bailey in Sewickley.
Necks are just as varied, from funnel necks and turtlenecks to cowl neck, boatnecks, crew necks and V necks. Sweater twin-sets remain strong and are expected to continue strong through winter and into spring. In line with the sweater craze, Carabella in Oakmont has washable silks by Joseph A in 62 colors and a variety of neck and sleeve styles.
Red, orange and green are prominent this season in an array of rich, warm shades, although designers seem to have declared open season on every color. Black, as always, returns in some stunning pieces, and watch for silver to slip subtly but beautifully into unexpected places.
Gray, however, will continue to reign as the hottest basic color, in shades ranging from dove to charcoal. The monochromatic gray of last fall is yielding to gray popped with another color, such as pink, blue, lilac or red.
Unlike winter white, which also makes an elegant resurgence, "head-to-toe gray is very difficult for most women to wear," observes Joanne Pagnanelli, vice president and fashion director at Kaufmann's.
So designers politely did some of the work for women, creating lots of outfits where gray is offset by another color, such as black in David Albow's long skirt with attached boucle waist wrap and matching bolero jacket at Capriccio in Squirrel Hill.
Floral and leaf patterns and appliques are big this season, as well as bold animal patterns ranging from leopard and pony to zebra and giraffe. You can find them on just about everything, especially accessories such as purses, scarves and footwear. Shearling shows up in everything from vests and jackets to purses and ponchos.
There's lots of texture, detailing and embellishment, most notably in sweaters, jackets and other tops. For a classic and comfortable look, mini-herringbone pleated pants are available at Lintons, Squirrel Hill, by Tamotsu. Twill is big, as are velvet, synthetic suede (that looks and feels just like the real McCoy) and an array of stretch fabrics.
Cashmere, soft and luxurious, is huge, more affordable and even washable in some cases. Wool, angora and mohair, perennial cool-weather standards, are back in fine form.
Denim is back with a vengeance, from snug-fitting jeans and shapely dresses to simple jackets. Adeles in Squirrel Hill has mod styles with feathers, velvet, beading and embroidery detailing that ride low on the waist. There's a strong Native American and South American influence, and some lines are spiked with Tencel or Lycra for a bit more stretch. Aside from blue, black, deep green and stone are popular colors.
Other hip trends are peasant tops, cargo skirts and pants, slim pants, hooded tops, body-hugging black leather, spiky-heeled shoes and boots, funky belts and handbags in delightfully outrageous shapes and sizes.
Evenings and special occasions will see lots of variety in styles and colors, such as Laundry's iridescent taffeta fishtail skirt matched with a cashmere shrug or a tube top with iridescent beading. Another standard: a big, poufy ball skirt paired with a sequined bustier and a soft pashmina scarf.
For the cautious but curious woman, this is the season to let her hair down, lose her inhibitions and luxuriate in designer fashions. As Diane Von Furstenberg says, they will make you feel "pretty, powerful, sexy and free."
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A dress, sweater or other top with a bias cut.