News

If fashion is about currency, the current nosedive of the economy would seem to threaten its very existence. Retail sales are so flat that luxury emporia are struggling to keep afloat, rather than launching anything forward-looking. And yet, much like the determined new players in the White House, two veteran fashion houses are finding fresh opportunity.

Both of these labels share a history that is inextricably linked with the political and economic advancement of women. And in a further parallel, they are taking inspiration from none other than the new First Lady.

Last month saw the reinvention of the mid-range, mid-life, middle-American Liz Claiborne. "Really, Liz Claiborne was one of my idols growing up," the label's new design chief, ex-Target darling Isaac Mizrahi, said in a phone interview. "What she contributed during her peak in the seventies and eighties — the way we shop today is her brainchild. I mean, she invented American sportswear."

Indeed, the late Claiborne was widely credited as being the first designer to insist her collection be presented in an in-store boutique instead of sprinkled throughout a department store. Her feminine yet professional clothes, designed to suit the needs of the first generation of women to enter the work force en masse, were as groundbreaking as her fans. And her eponymous company, which went public in 1986, was the first enterprise founded by a woman to be listed in the Fortune 500.

In recognizing the changing roles of women and providing them with the clothes that gave them the confidence to do it in style, Claiborne had company in another pioneer, Anne Klein. The late Klein founded her own label in 1968 on the premise that "clothes aren't going to change the world. The women who wear them will."

Since her death in 1974, the flame has been kept alive under the direction of such luminaries as Donna Karan, Louis Dell'Olio and, most recently, the designer of Michelle Obama's inaugural ensemble, Isabel Toledo. This month, designer Ted Kim, who earned his fashion chops at Donna Karan and Michael Kors, will present the new Anne Klein with a "face lift, tummy tuck and lots of yoga."

Both Mizrahi and Kim claim that, even though the world has changed significantly since Liz Claiborne and Anne Klein were in their heyday, the women they are designing for aren't all that different.

"It's another generation of the same woman," Kim said on the phone from a taxi in Paris. "She is confident, probably a career woman, who appreciates fashion and knows the trends but isn't trendy. And her clothes have to take her from day to evening to the weekend and to the workplace."

What has changed, in Mizrahi's view, is "the formula." "Women wear what they want now," he says. "They don't have to dress like they are grandmothers, even if they are grandmothers. And no matter what they do for a living, they don't have to do it dressed like men."

According to Kim, "women are much more confident to show their femininity than before." What's more, what they are interested in, given the current economic climate, is affordable, designer-level sportswear — read separates — "with a capital S."

Happily, both the new Anne Klein and Liz Claiborne collections, with their easy, "classic-with-a-twist" approach and designer-quality-for-less price points, look well positioned, even in these cautionary times, to oblige.

"It's all about versatility," Kim says. "Like multiple use out of a jacket or cardigan, so that after wearing it to work, she can pair it with jeans on the weekend or wear it going out."

So who, exactly, is the "she" they are designing for? I asked both Kim and Mizrahi, independently, who their celebrity muse is. Both came up with the identical answer.

"Hello, Michelle Obama works from home, and she has to look good wherever she goes," observed Mizrahi. Kim said, reverently, "Michelle Obama is the new Anne Klein woman. The way she mixes high and low, and re-works the investment pieces she has, is what modern American sportswear is all about."

The next day, the New Yorker dropped through my mail slot. On the cover of the style-themed issue is a cartoon of three Michelle Obamas walking the fashion runway in different outfits.

Along with just about everybody else, fashion is pinning its hopes on the new inhabitants of the White House. Grown-up girl power, it seems, wants a whole new look. And Michelle, our new paper doll, is showing us how.