senior moment; Fashion's feeling hugely affectionate-big, matte-red lipstick kiss here-toward the silver-haired grandmere in her Harris tweeds and her swing coat.

Byline: Lynn Yaeger

More than once, an authentic grandmother has sidled up to Patricia Kennedy in the street, cast a cold eye on her nipped-in waist, her pearl-buttoned gloves, her silk faille chapeau, and said something like "Honey, you look beautiful, but why? Why are you torturing yourself? Aren't you uncomfortable?" Kennedy, a freelance fashion PR rep who always, but always, looks like an achingly cool version of Lucy Ricardo, has been dressing in her own version of granny chic since she was eleven, greeting day after day in ensembles known to most people only from faded family photographs.

If Kennedy, with her vintage couture Dior blouses and Lilli Ann suits, is an extreme exemplar of the granny aesthetic ("I never even wear panty hose," she says proudly. "I wear seamed stockings and merry widow corsets that I have to order over the internet"), she is hardly alone this season as stores fairly burst with crocheted capelets, big-buttoned swing coats, and all manner of fur tippets.

So what's the appeal of these old-fashioned furbelows? And why now? Natalie Chanin, the designer of the quirky Project Alabama line, which relies heavily on visible hand-stitching and faux-naif embroidery (the clothes are actually made by Alabamans, some of them grandmas), thinks a powerful nostalgia is driving the trend: "It's like wearing that favorite handmade cardigan your aunt or grandmother made for you-our memories of a different time."

Well, maybe. But as a long-standing granny dresser myself, with a grandmother who did not knit (she could, on the other hand, make a Woolworth housedress look like a Balenciaga), I think the attraction lies in the style's deliberate ironies, the way it encourages the wearer to dabble in shocking contrasts, mixing the frankly fusty with the forward-thinking: naughty fishnets dancing under stolid herringbones; fuchsia hair peeking out from beneath a veiled hat. The trick is to signal to your audience that you're only playing, that beneath the charming dowdiness lies a vixen-but of course you've got to give them a few clues, like adding a pair of stilettos or showing a little cleavage. My personal style relies heavily on gray cardigan sweaters (grandpa chic?), as many mine-cut-diamond brooches as I can lay my hands on, and though I think my scarlet lips and metallic orange bob are supposed to cue the viewer that I'm only joking, not everyone gets the gag. (A friend once looked at my nun's clodhoppers, shook her head sadly, and said, "You'll never catch a man with those shoes." I switched to Chanel ballet flats.)

Of course, you don't need a stylish grandmother to accurately execute granny style, but it helps. Model Stella Tennant, a tweed freak who ups the granny ante with Junya Watanabe's natty deconstructions, is the granddaughter of the duchess of Devonshire, the last survivor of the notorious Mitford sisters. The duchess, now in her 80s, describes her style as a combination of garments "bought at agricultural shows, Marks & Spencer . . . and then Paris. Nothing in between seems to be much good. . . . At fourscore years plus, properly made clothes should last to the end . . . beautiful and always comfortable, which is my idea of what clothes ought to be."

Though Miuccia Prada hardly buys her frocks at farm fairs, there's more than a bit of the granny in her own style, which runs to plain-jane cardies over chiffon dresses worn with seriously stunning crocodile pumps. Prada's runway is, likewise, no stranger to grannyisms. If it's difficult to imagine a real grandmother, no matter how hip, turning up on the shuffleboard courts-or for lunch at Bergdorf's-in one of Prada's robot-print tees, faux and real grannies will no doubt embrace other elements of Prada's fall collection: straight skirts that cover the knee, narrow dresses with sweetheart necklines, and brooches, that veritable hallmark of the season, rendered in glittery fabric for the catwalk (though Miuccia-watchers know that the lady herself prefers the real thing, the bigger the better, and preferably groaning with antique diamonds).