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Femininity can be a girl's beat friend

By Suzanne S. Brown
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, DENVER
Thursday, Dec 22, 2005, Page 13

It's fashionable to deride Victorian style as over-ornamented, cloyingly sentimental and uptight. But it's also unabashedly feminine, and that's why a new generation of women is falling for its charms.

Lace blouses, velvet and brocade jackets, skirts with ruffles or bustles, ribbon trims and accessories such as cameo earrings, jet and pearl necklaces are showing up at holiday parties.

Lindsay Lohan models a high-necked Valentino blouse on the cover of the winter issue of Teen Vogue. Rachel Zoe, who styled Lohan for the cover and works with other young celebrities like Nicole Richie, said she finds the look "very Victorian and of the moment."

Designer Jessica McClintock revisited the era because she appreciates both its history and femininity.

"My great-great-grandparents came from England and Wales," McClintock said in a phone interview from her San Francisco headquarters. "I made clothes with Victorian details and went through a phase of doing blouses in the 1970s. So many women have come into my stores and asked why I don't do them again."

While best known for her prom dresses, McClintock said she and her son and business partner Scott were looking for ways to expand the definition of special-occasion wear when they came up with the idea of Victorian-inspired separates.

"I wanted to offer other choices for dressing up. I live in the city where Gap and Levi's are based, and I know how much Americans are into casual clothes and jeans, so I experimented with jackets, skirts and blouses they could wear in a very modern way."

Victorian outfits were restrictive and heavy. Contemporary fashion designers have taken some of the style from the era but have left the less desirable aspects in the past.

Femininity underscores the designs. "I like shapes that are very pretty and fitted and detailed, not with a lot of frills and froufrou, but darts, pintucks and little buttons," she said.

More than teenagers are going for the look. "Our Las Vegas store said a lot of women over 40 were buying the New Victorian collection," the designer said.

Such manufacturers as Necessary Objects and retailers like Anthropologie are on a similar track, offering jackets with peplums, blouses with high necks and such combin-ations of fabric as lace, crochet and Swiss dot.

What makes women melt at the sight of such sweetness? Jennifer Ogle, associate professor in the department of design and merchandising at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, said the Victorian vibe is catching on for several reasons.

"There's an emphasis on nostalgia -- we're harking back to an earlier time with its positive aesthetics and sentiments," Ogle said. "It's also a reaction to the fact that in recent years we've had more simplistic styles for men and women that were androgynous. So there's a reaction to that, a turn back to more feminine clothing."

Women entering the work force world in the 1980s adopted a masculine style of dress to fit in, Ogle added. Two decades later, "women have come so far along, maybe they don't need to do that to be taken seriously any more," she said.

Women are picking and choosing the elements of Victoriana they want to adopt. A bustier can be worn as an outer garment rather than be hidden under an outfit. A velvet jacket teams with jeans and heels for the office.

"To borrow from the past is a way to add uniqueness to your wardrobe," Ogle said. "In the Victorian era, there was one way to look. Women today have much more variety."
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