Fashion Designers Simply Rebirthed Old It Items

Fashion Designers Simply Rebirthed Old It Items
The modern-day fashion plate's insistence on individuality is both a blessing and a curse for designers.

On the one hand, design houses create wholly experimental ready-to-wear lines that include "it" skirt lengths and white clothes all year round. (Hooray for self-expression and the end of style exile for the nonconformist!)

But this "I'm-doing-me" attitude makes it nearly impossible for today's designers to find their signature item, like the Polo shirt, the Chanel suit, the Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. These pieces seeped into consecutive seasons and drove the well-dressed to buy the real deal repeatedly, because absolutely no other would do.

Those designers became legends.

By the end of this week's festive prelude to Spring 2005 in Bryant Park, however, it was clear designers were grasping to make their own magic. Anna Sui tried a Wild, Wild West theme that pushed petticoats as outerwear, Donna Karan played around with sweatshirt jersey materials in dressy outfits, and Vivienne Tam probably wants credit for bringing navy blue back to the fashion scene.

As refreshingly creative as these top designers were for Spring 2005 compared with the last three seasons, their pieces lacked the never-seen-before spark of 1970s von Furstenberg. Instead of brand new, the designers simply rebirthed old "it" items.

Her