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FASHION FORECAST 
by Bernadine Morris

Whatever other changes it may provoke, the Reagan administration is sure to change our attitude towards dressing. After the laid-back style of the Carter years, more formality will prevail, not only for evening, but in daytime hours as well. 
   Are bee-hive hairdos, inch-long eyelashes, stiletto- heel pumps and plunging necklines on the way back? Are tousled hair, sneakers, T-shirts and jeans ready to join the junk heap of fashion, to be revived as quaint artifices of the 1970's in the fashion museums of the future?
   Possibly, though it is always difficult to chart the specifics of fashion even when the general direction is clear. Jeans, for instance, will probably not disappear, but may lead a more circumspect life on college campuses, for leisure activities and around the house. If the bouffant hairdo and the fall do not return to favor, hair spray may. Nancy Reagan never appears in public with a lock of hair out of place.
   There were signs that fashions was getting its act together even before the inauguration. Jeans themselves were trading up, with designer names on their back pocket and their distressed years behind them: it's been a long time since anyone has treated them to Clorox baths to age them prematurely or applied patches except where there are holes. The 1960's looks of gypsy scarves, tie-dyed shirts and peasant skirts had been replaced by more controlled separates. 
    But Nancy Reagan, with her appreciation ofmore traditional designers-- James Galanos, Bill Blass and Adolfo--is drawing attention away from the more casual, thrown together "street fashions" to more serious clothes. This does not mean complicated looking styles, or exaggerated ones. 
    "Sleeves can't get any bigger and skirts can't get any fuller without going into hoops," observes Arnold Scaasi, the New York custom designer who has made clothes for members of the Reagan entourage, including Barbara Sinatra. "Exageration is out," he says. "What people are looking for now is quality and refinement. Everything will be scaled down."
    He gives a practical reason why this is so. "Clothes are expensive--any kind of clothes," he says. "With subtler, simpler designs and quality fabrics, women will be able to make them last longer. They'll be able to wear last year's dress without everyone knowing it's last year's." 
    The 1970's were a time when fashion took a breather between the chaos of the previous decade and what is to come, explained Stella Blum, curator of costumes for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What is coming, she believes, is a sense of respectability, spurred by the Reagan style. "You can already see signs of this," she says. "Men are wearing nicely fitted overcoats. People who work in offices or banks can be readily distinguished from students and from those who don't have to present themselves properly."
     The election itself is a reflection of current values and it can't help but be reflected in turn in the clothes people wear, she adds.



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[[image: man standing, shirtless, wearing jeans]]
Calvin Klein Jeans