Pardon, Your Slips Are Showing

A great failing of so many designers is that they have a passion for clothes and for the craft of design, but they haven't identified a niche that has gone unfulfilled. They haven't pinpointed some garment or sensibility they can refine and execute better than anyone else ever has. They make pretty clothes, but the stores are crowded with clothes that can be described as pretty, and bankruptcy courts have borne witness to the demise of more than one business that prided itself on its pretty frocks.

More of the younger designers should take a lesson from Karan, who identified a specific kind of woman for whom she wanted to design. She didn't choose some mythical creature who spends her time on private jets jumping from St. Barts to Saint.-Tropez to Aspen and back again. And she didn't dig up some vague character who is ageless, creative, smart, sexy and time-starved -- a description that could basically describe most women.

From the beginning, Karan spoke most profoundly to a high-end professional woman who did not want to navigate her business life dressed in a stiff suit and floppy bow tie. Karan gave that woman business clothes that left her femininity intact. Over the years, her audience has expanded far beyond that. But Karan's message has remained distinct.

Her collection for spring is filled with silk and jersey dresses that wrap around the body, as well as airy caftans. These aren't work clothes but they are the kind of garments that her professional women might like to wear in their downtime. Karan has a knack for being able to blend luxury and ease into an almost rustic, barefoot sensibility. She creates clothes for women who are too complicated to settle for pretty. These are the clothes a hardworking woman wants to wear when she finally manages to take that week's vacation at the spa.

There is no other designer whose personal style is so wholly reflected in her work. When Karan takes her bows, she wears clothes from the collection. She doesn't send out miniskirts and halter tops and then appear in a caftan. On Friday afternoon she wore a slouchy, sleeveless olive dress with a Sherpa bag slung across her shoulders. She looked comfortable. She looked as though she had picked up the bag from some interesting trip abroad. She looked rich. She looked a lot more interesting than just "pretty."

In a season like this, filled with voluminous dresses -- that observers have taken to calling chicken dresses, because they make it look as though a woman's head is protruding from a giant torso covered in plumage -- a designer such as Ralph Lauren is especially appreciated. Calmly and confidently, he showed a collection dominated by white, black and platinum that eloquently made clear why he has been successful for so long. He doesn't engage in trends.

He has identified a way of dressing, a way of identifying oneself. On Friday morning, his models walked the runway coolly ignoring the industry's obsession with volume and flora. His models called to mind admirably stylish women who have decided to tune out the hullabaloo going on all around them.

Lauren's first model walked out in a black polo shirt and a pair of easy black trousers. What was the high design in that? Nothing, really. That look wasn't about showing off some virtuosity of ruching and draping.

Instead, it was a statement of attitude. Was it Coco Chanel or the legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland who once said that elegance is refusal? The meaning of that statement was never clearer. Elegance is refusing to be held hostage to trends. It is the refusal to play dress-up when all one really wants to do is be well dressed. How hard is that?

If viewers learn anything about the fashion industry from "Project Runway," it may be a fuller understanding of how difficult it is to create beautiful, surprising and wearable clothes. They will get a sense of the relentless nature of fashion and the constant demand from the public to be wowed. And perhaps the next great American designer will speak boldly, confidently and with the smarts to know when to say, "No, thank you."