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"  The return of the suit, just as the news pages filled up with pictures of bankers clearing their desks, stacking their cardboard boxes, and heading into a future where they may never need to wear a jacket again, seems, to put it mildly, a little off. But there you go. Designers, poor mites, couldn&amp;#039;t have known quite what was about to be unleashed on the world&amp;#039;s financial institutions when they began sketching 2009&amp;#039;s spring collections way back in the spring of 2008. (Apparently, even the gurus paid to run those institutions were in the dark.) So they were working from gut instinct and a conviction that after years of floatiness, of playing around with quirky, voluminous shapes, of shoveling extravagance onto already fancy fabrics, it was time for a change. See how fashion echoes politics, even when it looks as though it&amp;#039;s about as clued up as Paris Hilton? Now, you&amp;#039;d expect to see spruce fitted sheath dresses at RM by Roland Mouret, Narciso Rodriguez, or Oscar de la Renta, and knife-edge tailoring is why you go to Akris, Yves Saint Laurent, Antonio Berardi, or Givenchy. But there&amp;#039;s an expanding group of designers \u2014 Australian Josh Goot and New Yorkers Phillip Lim and Derek Lam \u2014 for whom tailoring has become a kind of entry-level calling card. There are also plenty of labels that produced a take on the boxy, boucl\u00E9 Chanel-inspired jackets, including, I&amp;#039;m relieved to report, Chanel. Then there are those designers who can go either way when it comes to tailoring or fluidity \u2014 Marc Jacobs, Cristina Ortiz at Salvatore Ferragamo, and Stella McCartney, who all came out solidly in favor of proper jackets, cute tailored shorts with or without turnups, and spiffy, crisp waistcoats, some with teeny cupped shoulder pads that hug the shoulders. And pants. Boy, are they all loving pants. Almost every designer produced some \u2014 harems, paper bags, carrot pants, treggings \u2014 none of which under any circumstances are to be confused with jeans.  Personally, I think this is where tailoring starts. These are pants that require darting, seaming, heel guards, formed waistbands. Once you have pants, you&amp;#039;re a heartbeat \u2014 and maybe a few hundred more dollars \u2014 away from a pantsuit. Gucci&amp;#039;s were slightly slouchy but arrow thin and, I couldn&amp;#039;t help thinking as the models sauntered down the runway, hands in their pockets under their boyfriend jackets, fedoras perched rakishly over their eyes, the first pantsuits in more than a decade that I could imagine nonpantsuit wearers wanting to wear. Needless to say, I wanted one immediately, even though I wasn&amp;#039;t convinced I would ever wear it as a bona fide suit. &amp;quot;Of course you will,&amp;quot; Antonio Berardi tells me. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s time for things to match again. It&amp;#039;s a kind of back-to-basics attitude but with a close eye on tomorrow.&amp;quot; Then, possibly to prove that designers can talk like grown-ups too, he adds, &amp;quot;An amazing trouser suit is a great investment.&amp;quot;  Obviously, I had to try the skinny pearl-gray pantsuit that I&amp;#039;d had my eye on ever since seeing it on Berardi&amp;#039;s runway, with its sexy cropped pants and its kick pleat at the back of the jacket. (Though the science behind tailoring is elaborate, all that really matters is that it makes your bottom and back look really elegant.) And guess what? Not retro. There&amp;#039;s lots of modern potential. For instance, I could wear it with one of those ruffled tops that are everywhere. Also, how sophisticated will that steely gray make all those greens, corals, and blues out there this season look? Even so, in this topsy-turvy economy, there were some important queries I had to clear prior to clinching the deal. Would wearing a suit make me look, one, successful and businesslike (not bad traits to be exhibiting in these deflated times, but possibly a little tactless) or two, like someone trying hard to look successful and therefore desperate? Funnily enough, I&amp;#039;d just been reading legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head&amp;#039;s How to Dress for Success, written in 1967 but recently republished by the Victoria and Albert Museum, where Head writes, &amp;quot;In your search for success, of course, clothes cannot take the place of the essential qualities needed for that success.&amp;quot; And where she also writes, with no detectable irony, &amp;quot;Looking like a super-efficient executive secretary may help you get the job, but it won&amp;#039;t help you punctuate the letters.&amp;quot; Of course, there was no irony. Superefficient secretary was about as good as it got for most women in 1967. And that&amp;#039;s my point. Suits, tailoring, Jackie Kennedy shift dresses were all terrific in 1967. But what do they say about a woman in 2009? &amp;quot;I think tailoring does indicate a certain seriousness,&amp;quot; says Phillip Lim, who mixed in frills and sequins to compelling effect, &amp;quot;if only because it&amp;#039;s a demand for tradition and perfection in construction and fit.&amp;quot; Berardi agrees. &amp;quot;Tailoring is power. A woman in a man&amp;#039;s suit is the embodiment of authority, of control, of strength, and simultaneously a confirmation of all that is chic, especially now. It always comes to the fore in challenging times. Look what happened after the crash in 1929. Hepburn and Dietrich both championed the trouser and made it acceptable.&amp;quot; I know what he means, although I never thought I&amp;#039;d write the words power and suit in the same article ever again. (In fact, the words power and suit were first conjoined in the mid-&amp;#039;70s.) I&amp;#039;d also add that successful suit wearing lies in successful suit choosing. A suit that&amp;#039;s too rigid or tailored, too exaggerated, or too...suitlike won&amp;#039;t make you look chic or authoritative if those characteristics don&amp;#039;t come naturally to you. As Coco Chanel said, &amp;quot;Dress shabbily, they notice the dress. Dress impeccably, they notice the woman.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s a profoundly personal act, this business of finding the right tailoring. I know what I feel happy in \u2014 a slim-cut jacket with smallish shoulder pads, double- or single-breasted with sharp but not huge lapels; slimmish ankle-length pants. But where does that get you?  &amp;quot;People never look chic when they are straining to reach or bend down; it&amp;#039;s annoying to be uncomfortable and not a positive feeling to project,&amp;quot; says Joanna Sykes, who since working for Alberta Ferretti has set up her own label of rapturously received draped pants, chic-simple peacoats, and oversize jackets that sell out instantly. &amp;quot;People want to feel smart, glamorous, and luxurious without being flashy or exhibiting conspicuous consumption.&amp;quot; Did I mention she graduated from Central Saint Martins in London with first-class honors? But the real reason I like hearing what she has to say about tailoring is that I enjoy seeing how she wears it \u2014 in that \u00FCbercool, undone way. &amp;quot;There needs to be a real unzipped element. It should look effortless and not constrict movement. For quality in tailoring, the things to look for are cut, construction, and fabric,&amp;quot; she adds. &amp;quot;A well-cut jacket shouldn&amp;#039;t have drag lines in the body or sleeves.&amp;quot; While the technicalities are crucial, it&amp;#039;s the way you put it all together that determines whether the investment pays off. A wide patent belt, aggressive footwear, a hat with attitude, and maybe a feathery bolero chucked on over your top at night takes you into rock-chick territory. Bright colors and bold shoulders will channel the &amp;#039;80s, via Agyness Deyn. A short skirt and a boxy jacket equals Chanel. Teeny hot pants and an oversize jacket equals Kate Moss (who was rumored to have recently bought three bespoke jackets from Savile Row tailors Anderson &amp;amp;amp; Sheppard). But why stop at tailored separates? The tailored dress is both as traditional and as modern as it gets. Add a matching coat for versatility and you have a modus operandi that works brilliantly for our times. Just ask Michelle Obama, a woman who has seamlessly married her love of fashion to the formal mandate of her role by making the Isabel Toledo tailored dress and coat her own. There&amp;#039;s nothing corporate about modern tailoring either, especially if you deploy a little counterintuition. &amp;quot;The rules have relaxed and women can really express their individual style,&amp;quot; says Phillip Lim, who suggests &amp;quot;mixing and matching suits and elements of other suits, light-colored tops with darker bottoms. I think layering can add a lot of romance and femininity. Technology has made fabrics wonderfully sophisticated, and suits are not confined to just woven fabrics. I&amp;#039;d define a power suit nowadays as any tailored outfit that suggests good taste and confidence.&amp;quot; Perhaps the last word should go to Edith Head, who certainly knew her clothes: &amp;quot;The basic elements of any business woman&amp;#039;s wardrobe should rely on this trio: simple casual suits, tailored dresses, and good separates.&amp;quot; Replace should with could and you have a recipe that works as well today as it did 40 years ago.  Lisa Armstrong is fashion editor of The Times in the U.K. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/a373/spring-suit-trends-0409/>