FASHION

SLIM trousers worn under skirts and frocks was an odd-ball fad that peaked and fizzled in the 1990s. The layered look, if the garments were fluid enough and carefully weighted without bulk, were flattering and comfortable and offered a modest sort of elegance.

Women lapped up the look across all ages and demographics. However, the layers did also impede the free flow of visual information between legs and their traditional, red-blooded beholders. And, it was perhaps this vocal minority of "leg men" ("Dress? Pants? Why both?") who accelerated the look's exit from fashion. In Paris last week, however, Karl Lagerfeld revived the frock-on-pants fad in his haute couture collection for Chanel. Tailored skirt suits, swishy chiffon dresses and chic little frock-coats were mated with cigarette trousers or ruched punjab pants, cropped at the ankle or with a short tongue of fabric over chic, dagger-toed flats.

Brace for a revival.

TOP BLING

MELBOURNE jewellery designer Lauren Besser, 28, flew home from Berlin Fashion Week's Premium Exhibition with a little more bling in her bag than usual: the Young Designer Award for Accessories, presented for her Maripossa jewellery brand. Besser's winning designs are delicate, drapery-like, cobwebby things for neck, decolletage and wrists, hand-woven with sometimes 40 metres of fine sterling silver chain. Her rings are rocky chunks of raw crystal. Besser's Maripossa brand is well known to connoisseurs and canny buyers at HUSK, Cyberia, Philips and Salt stores in Melbourne and a swelling stockist list in Australia and Europe. Her award collection is available now, priced from $100 to $600.

www.maripossa.com.au,

0411 129 252

LEFT IS RIGHT

FITZROY'S rare brand mecca, Left boutique, is racking Yohji Yamamoto womenswear as you read. Buyer Renee Quast says the first YY mainline range to be stocked in Melbourne for many years "features lots of black [naturally] with a kind of Japanese Jimi Hendrix chic and neon print separates to spark up the dark". Quast also expects delivery of Fleet Ilya leather bags from Britain, as well as edited extracts from Damir Doma German menswear and Sandra Backlund sculptured knitwear collections.

Left, 161 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, 9419 9292, www.leftmelbourne.blogspot.

comttizreet

SUITE SECRET

DONCASTER is a little more chic for the recent arrival in its Westfield Styling Suite of fashion royal Anthea O'Connor. The Melbourne editor of Australian Vogue and veteran fashion writer, stylist and presenter left the magazine to freelance. New projects include work as stylist on a Working Dog Productions film. And she signed up as a consultant to women who book a group ($850-$1250) or personal session ($350-$600) for two or four hours of elegant fun, fashion advice and "refreshments" in the Westfield Doncaster Styling Suite. "There's a fashion solution for every body, shape and bank balance," O'Connor says. "I am definitely one for investment dressing; choosing fewer, quality pieces that will run the distance but don't underestimate the power of small big-impact details either."

westfield.com/doncaster, 9091 5594, antheaoc@bigpond.net.au.