FASHIONS: Draped, Riveted & FulI-Blown

The thriving U.S. fashion industry blossomed out with so many spring styles last week that the New York Times devoted a 64-page magazine to them. But for zany creations (see cuts’) aimed at the Easter trade, Paris rated the headlines.

Jacques Fath, serenely confident that women will gladly carry around several yards of window drapes attached to their elbows, set off his strapless white satin sheath gown with “conversation piece” gloves trailing sweeping panels of white satin lined in champagne tulle. Raphael forsook needle & thread for the saw & hammer, peeled off wafer-thin slices of plywood and riveted them—with diamonds, naturally—to the cape of his suit. Castillo of Lanvin’s rose-red skirt, fanning out in a graceful arc “like the petals of a full-blown rose,” used 33 yards of taffeta to achieve that effect.