Living: Dressing Down in Sloppy Chic

The rumpled, crumpled, wrinkled, crinkled look

It was said of Columnist Heywood Broun that he resembled an unmade bed. This summer that dubious sartorial distinction is being emulated by fashion-conscious men and women from Fifth Avenue to Rodeo Drive. The look could be called Sloppy Chic. Its adherents insist that the clothes they wear be made of natural fibers—cotton, linen, silk—and that they look natural: unstructured, unlined, unstarched, unpressed. Their aim is to look carefree not careless, modish not messy, though the distinction may at times be more in the eye of the wearer...