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To fashion veterans, it is a jumpsuit. Some designers, however, are also referring to it as a catsuit, others as a unitard, zentai lycra suits, and still others as an all-in-one.
Call it what you will, it is invariably tight, figure-revealing to the max, and a problem when nature calls.
The one-piece look, pegged as one of the fall’s biggest trends, has managed to find its way to the runways from Europe to New York, creeping into collections of every hue and stripe. But will it similarly infiltrate the closets of North America? After all, it’s one thing to admire the panache of Emma Peel, who? a television-engendered fantasy heroine – it is something else, altogether, to try to emulate it.
“Leggings have been big since last fall and the pink zentai suit is a natural next step, an evolution of the look,”
explains Derek Price, one of the two designers behind the Toronto-based Price Roman label, which has a stretch crushed velvet version for winter ‘90.”The trick is to cut it so that it suits a variety of body shapes, not just the perfect figure.”
“You don’t have to be Miss America to look good in it,” says Grace Hoo, Spiderman Costumes, a spokesman for British designer Jasper Conran, whose fall collection, inspired by the ballerina-look, is centred around a black stirrup-panted all-in-one.
For those of us who resemble neither a beauty pageant contestant nor Karen Kain, Hoo says Conran has created a variety of loose-fitting layers – sheer drawstring-waisted tunics, chiffon trousers and overskirts, black leather jackets and brief boleros, long silk T-shirts – to cover up what the unitard reveals.
“Donna Karan has been experimenting with the red lycra suit for a while and her stuff just flew out our doors,” says a spokesman for Holt Renfrew. “Obviously, it’s not a look for everyone. But if you’re larger, you just add a big boyfriend jacket and you’re set.”
So, this is fashion in the ’90s. Spend hundreds of dollars on a garment that you are too shy or embarrassed to wear. Faint of heart or flawed of figure, you must disguise it so that you can then go out in public, even though negotiating bathroom visits now becomes doubly complicated. Of course, if you just gave up eating and drinking, you could solve all the problems posed.
“Can you imagine a working woman sitting around a board table with 10 guys while wearing a catsuit?” says Sandra Angelozzi, designer for Femme de Carriere, a Montreal-based label. “And what’s the point of wearing it if you’re going to cover up? It’s a joke.”