FASHION Soft Wear at Work

A QUIET REVOLUTION HAS BEEN

sweeping through board rooms across the city. Though the news has been slow in coming, corporations everywhere
report the demise of an Eighties phenomenon known as Power Dressing. The era of women suited up like linebackers has
given way to a new approach. Gone is aggressive dressing. In its place: softness and femininity.

For those who find comfort in sameness, the Eighties provided a perfectly woven safety net of gray pin stripes and
paisley prints. Suits, curiously, managed to be as architectural and boxy as they were confining. The only room for
individuality was in the color of one’s floppy bow tie. When someone gave the look a perfectly Eighties kind of
name-the Power Suit-the die was cast.

The new decade’s new attitudes have engendered a new approach to dressing for the office. Now the invisible line
that has traditionally divided the working woman’s closet into “Off Hours” on the one side and “Work” on the other
has slowly, but thankfully, vanished. Where Brooks Brothers once reigned, there is growing room for, say, Chanel or,
in the case of one successful woman, Todd Oldham.

Doing double duty as art critic for KERA and as McDermott Curatorial Intern in contemporary art at the Dallas Museum
of Art, Joan Davidow has never been called upon to “fit into any neat little groove of cookie-cutter style.” Her
aversion to wearing one label head-to-toe is rooted in her belief that dressing should be a means of expressing
oneself. A self-described Todd Oldham groupie, Davidow doesn’t feel bound by the dress codes that limit many of the
otherwise well-intentioned career-conscious. “I’m not your typical Dallas shopper-I don’t do malls. I’ll shop Todd
sales Ann Taylor sales, at Loeh-mann’s, and Clotheshorse Anonymous. And I’ll wear separates, pieces I probably
didn’t get at the same place at the same time.”

For spring, designers have taken their cue from the needs of real women like Davidow, leaving behind the extreme,
hard-edged silhouettes of the past in favor of softer, more feminine fashions. The newest suits bear little
resemblance to their forebears, boasting curvy tailoring, fluid fabrics, natural shoulders, and, like the rest of
spring’s offerings, pale, barely there colorings. The suit-and-tie ease of menswear is coupled with the femininity
of womenswear.

Most notable is the new proportion created by the season’s signature piece: the longer jacket. Without the heavy
construction of seasons past, many sport the look and feel of a drapey, oversized shirt. Others are long and
tailored, but curve at the hips, or focus