FASHION: Look of the Looks

When Paris first shows off its new fashions, it permits no pictures for at least one month. The world’s high-fashion leaders want no one pirating their latest creations until they are solidly entrenched in the salons. This week Paris finally let the world see what the new 1958 spring fashions were all about. The chemise is here to stay—but with endless variations.

Instead of a plain, almond-shaped sack, designers are moving the hemline up, the neckline down, taking in waists, adding pleats, ruffles, tapered skirts, brighter colors all around. And for each new style, there is a new name: side-draped “toga coats” by Jacques Griffe; the slope-shouldered “Sling Drape” by Castillo of Lanvin; the gently indented Egg-Cup Silhouette” by Jacques Heim. Three of the most important “looks” (see cuts) : Pierre Cardin’s tapered “Sickle Silhouette,” Guy Laroche’s bouncy “Flounce Look,” Dior Designer Yves Saint-Laurent’s loose and swinging “Trapeze Line.”