Life

How Michelle Obama Helped Vanquish the Baby Doll Dress

After years of tent dresses, the form-fitting frock is coming back.

When I was pregnant, finding relatively stylish maternity clothes was a breeze: An excellent pair of dark blue, straight-leg Earl Jeans endured until the last week of my pregnancy. Two Japanese Weekend wrap dresses carried me through work meetings, date nights, family dinners, and holiday parties.

View the DoubleX slideshow of the return of the waist.

I never thought I would have trouble buying flattering clothes once my waist was restored. But two-and-a-half years after my daughter was born, I struggled to find tailored dresses in a sea of baby dolls, goddesses, empire waists, and wide A-lines. Why must it be so difficult to locate dresses cut for women neither childish nor with child?

Ours is not the first generation of grown women to deal with the tyranny of the tent dress, and with its implicitly infantilizing aesthetic. In the 1930s, designer Claire McCardell became famous creating fast-selling waistless dresses. According to Patricia Mears, the deputy director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, McCardell used children’s clothing as her inspiration, tweaking the designs to make them more womanly. “She would go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, look at their collection of kids’ clothes, and make patterns with a gathered neck, long empire sleeves, spaghetti strap ties, so you could tie them lower for a fitted torso,” Mears says.

Since then, several cultural shifts have continued to move designers away from narrowly styled proportions. American women are bigger and more ethnically varied now, and designers have trouble cutting a defined waist to fit such a wide range of body types. As a result, more and more brands are making dresses larger and leaving women to fend for themselves, adding a belt or hiring a tailor to improve fit.

Another reason for loose dresses’ ubiquity, Mears says, is that, since the late 1960s, American women have rejected the “structured undergarments” that allowed our grandmothers, svelte or otherwise, to wear more-form-fitting styles. Sartorially, feminism freed women from girdles, encouraging us to embrace the natural shapes of our bodies, but that freedom has led to a kind of fashion chaos, with short baby doll shapes, peasant blouses, and ankle-length flowing dresses seemingly in every store. “I think that a lot of this is due to the fact that Americans, especially our generation, have no idea how to scrutinize our bodies and our fit,” Mears explains.

We’ve also become a lot more casual, and our informal, bohemian sensibility—sweat pants to concerts, jeans to business meetings—has spilled into dress choices. Even ostensibly sophisticated patterns leave much to be desired.

Inspired by McCardell, I went on a hunt for something both flexible and fitted. I found a sleeveless J.Crew jersey dress, with a removable jersey belt, that the company’s web site describes thus: “elegant, Grecian-inspired silhouette, in our refined, sophisticated viscose jersey.”

It seemed like a great idea on the rack: an easy-to-wear navy blue, an appealing scoop neck, a soft fabric. Trying it on, though, I found myself lost in far too many folds, and I looked decidedly more hippie than Hellenic.

Examining my reflection, I had a sudden flashback of shopping, at about age 12, with my late, beloved grandmother, in a Filene’s Basement somewhere in Queens. I recall sharing a dressing room with her and her candid but not unkind assessment of a shapeless dress: “It does nothing for you, sweetheart.”

Well, two dozen years have passed, and I wonder, is it too much to ask my clothes to do something for me? Must I do all of the work?

Tags: Michelle Obama, sheath dresses, tailoring, waists

Jackie Cooperman covers culture, travel and style for publications including the Financial Times, the New York Times' T Magazine, and Town & Country.

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