Sending out invitations slipped into pairs of white gloves and lining her runway with tables set for tea, Betsey Johnson established a "School of Charm" for her latest show. Could this really be the same designer whose cheeky antics have included those "GUYS ♥ B.J." tees? Apparently so. "Fall is more elegant, refined—more grown-up," the perennial teenager said. "We have to be more about the cake than the icing."
Of course, Betsey wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. Her prototypical sex-bomb baby still strode the catwalk in a suit with pinup short shorts, and any number of blowsy (okay, to be frank, tarty) dresses. Meanwhile, the more mature—if not strictly demure—minx dressed the part in formfitting frocks with a whisper of Dietrich, and a really pretty brown blouse with white polka dots, paired with a suspendered pinstripe skirt in a length that Johnson evocatively described as "longer, leaner, and more swayable."
