Manhattan Mati Haris

Diane von Furstenberg's signature dress debuted in 1973, but it wasn't until half a decade later that the jersey wrap revolutionized the wardrobe of the Middle American working woman.

The turning point occurred when von Furstenberg overstock appeared on the racks of America's discount chains. It didn't matter if the dresses were two years out of date and it didn't matter that they weren't von Furstenberg's cleverest prints. What was crucial was that they were being sold for $35.00 and had an honest-to-God designer label. The dresses helped the discounters promote their stores as credible retail destinations for women with more ambition than cash. Marshalls took full advantage of the wrap dresses, working them into their "Never pay full price" television commercials.

The fashion-and-budget-conscious consumer already knew the dress. She was also starrily aware of von Furstenberg's title and her membership in the international jet set.

From the late 1800s through the beginning of the 20th century, it was customary for the daughters of wealthy American industrialists to marry impoverished, titled foreigners in an exchange that raised the family's public image and social currency. The families that comprised what was then known as "The 400" suffered an image problem both at home and abroad that they aggressively sought to eradicate. In many instances, the dynasty had its origins in rough stock that its descendants repudiated by means of nobly brokered matrimony.

In addition, a fierce competition over social standing took place among the nouveau riche families of the insular "400" society. A primary example of a successful barter occurred when Consuelo Vanderbilt was forced to marry Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough. The Duke got cash, the Vanderbilts bested the Astors, and the American public got their very own Duchess. These so-called "brilliant" alliances fomented an opinion that Europeans were culturally superior beings.

Seventy-odd years later, the supersonic Concorde shortened the distance between Paris and New York to a mere three-and-a-half hours. The American fashion and society media aggressively documented the jet-setters' stateside lifestyles in W, Vogue, and The New York Times. The popular coverage resulted in a renewed hunger for status and in the beginning of the designer-label craze.

The impact of Belgian-born von Furstenburg's wrap dress upon a culture hungry for prestige cannot be underestimated. Finished with a shirt's collar and cuffs, the dress was suitable for the workplace when worn under a blazer and with a simple change of accessories was still dressy enough for dinner. It was designed to the exact point where it could stop and still retain its character. By 1979, the dress had become the status symbol of the nation's secretarial pool.

The appearance of the dress at Marshalls occurred at precisely the same time that the first wave of designer mania swept across America.

The basic dress worked on many emotional and physical levels. The dress enhanced the body without unnecessary furbelow and the label carried the presumption of class. It became the must-have item of the middle class even as its designer sought to improve it and keep it relevant on Seventh Avenue. Perhaps most importantly, it allowed the wearer to depict a desired individual reality while staying within the norms of acceptable sumptuary convention.

Following the long run of that bellwether garment, von Furstenberg watched as her original business dried up and her status as adopted American royalty landed her a gig at that most democratic of American retail institutions, QVC. By 1997, the original wrap design was old enough to be seen as classic vintage. It was on the backs of young, vintage remixers that the dress reappeared in fashion consciousness. Von Furstenberg then returned to designing apparel and in what might be called a very Darwinian way adapted the dress to the needs of the millennium woman. Evolved in this manner, the dress enjoyed nearly another decade of fashion sostenuto.

Fall 2008 sees the dress wholly returned to the closet. Working with a Dietrich inspiration, von Furstenberg created a pre-jet set narrative of Manhattan Mata Haris and the wardrobe they might need for various foreign intrigues.

Espionage, we learned, can be accomplished without a wrapped waist.

At this point in her career, von Furstenberg's stepping away from the signature element seems slightly more important than the collection itself. The wrap design is eternally flattering, but its iconic status had become a limitation. To mine the same seam this season would have been a mistake.

Von Furstenburg may have left the wrap dress in the archives, but the collection did not reflect this step towards modernization. Both apparel and models suggested that the designer continues to realize her original customer, a glossy woman who thirty years ago wrapped herself in the pale lilac aura of 1970s café society. Due to the Gen X fascination with the pale and the emaciated, the stronger cosmetic statement seemed almost adversarial, as if proclaiming to fashion's new prophets the need to bifurcate gender.

There were only two marginal pieces: a gold lame dress too readily recalled the glut of that material in the 1980s and a flapper dress had heavy chevron adornment to thank for its descending shapelessness.

The collection's real accomplishment was a baby step towards rejuvenating the meaning and pertinence the designer had in 1973, without taking the orthodoxy of the wrap into consideration. A question looms: Why do we demand total self-transcendence?

It's a long way back from QVC, but this is the year to reclaim former glory even as the attempt fell a bit short of another dies Solis.

Images: Style.com