Business: Salable Fall Styles

To New York apparel makers it was the best fall fashion preview in years. Not only did a record number of out-of-town buyers show up, but their orders were 10% to 20% ahead of last year. What won over the buyers, said Felix Lilienthal Jr. of Felix Lilienthal & Co., Inc., big independent resident buying house (150 accounts, $800 million a year in purchases), was the eminent “wearability, salability and promotability” of this year’s fashions. Whatever her age or shape, the customer this year will find clothes that fit and become her. Said Lilienthal: “The new fashions will not make headlines, but they will make dollars.”

New Era. Spurring the industry’s hopes is the rising level of U.S. consumer spending. Department-store sales in the week ending June 13 were 3% over last year, despite a sales-crippling newspaper strike in St. Louis. Fairchild News Service’s own survey, covering specialty shops as well as department stores, showed a sales jump of 4% over the preceding week, the tenth such weekly rise. Another big reason for confidence is that manufacturers this year took pains to study their market. Many sent their designers on nationwide tours to sound out stores and shoppers on the kind of clothes women want to buy. The consensus: the U.S. woman does not want novelties or revolutionary, untested style changes that make a heavy investment in clothes a risk. Women buy the most, said Kirby, Block’s Cynthia Marks, when the clothes flatter the figure, give them confidence and a sense of fashion authority. More than ever, they recognize the value of quality and will pay accordingly.

To Manhattan Manufacturer Herbert

Sondheim, one of the industry’s leaders, all this means that the U.S. is on the verge of a new era of luxury and individuality in clothing, in which shoppers at every price level prefer one good article to two shoddy ones. Taking dead aim at achieving an “opulent look,” Sondheim and other manufacturers have gone in heavily for velvet, lace, brocade and other elegant fabrics in evening and cocktail dresses, have used fur trim lavishly. The dressier clothes cost more, promising retailers both higher unit and dollar volume. Fur Pants. Another place where the luxury look shows up is in the rising popularity of elegant casual costumes. Many top fashion houses are showing jacket-and-trouser sets to be worn to cheer the tired executive after a hard day at the office. Variations range from Fredrica Furs’ $1,195 nutria car coat with pants of hamster fur (retail price of pants: $195) to Designer Lisa Fonssagrive’s Edwardian smoking jacket and pants (see cut) of muted-green velveteen piped in mauve (retail price: $125). Another costume from the same designer, onetime top U.S. fashion model (TIME, Sept. 19, 1949): a woolen evening wrap shaped like a cocoon, with a single saucer-sized button under the chin. The color: hot canary.