Shock Value.

Byline: Anna Wintour

I recently had the pleasure of attending a lunch at the White House with a group of women from around the country-including, of course, the First Lady. It was an interesting occasion, not least because most of my fellow guests were wearing bright suits in fuchsia, green, and yellow; major hair; and major jewelry. Except for the skirt lengths and the scale of the shoulder pads, we might have been in the eighties. I was reminded of how attached we become to looks that have served us well, however long ago, and couldn't help thinking that we are due one of those seismic shocks that fashion periodically sends out in order to awaken us to new ideas about beauty and dress and, ultimately, ourselves. Chanel's 1954 cardigan jacket, as Sarah Mower reminds us in this issue, is now regarded as the definitive modern suit; but back then, it was received by the European press with outrage and horror.

It so happens that the Marc Jacobs collection for fall 2005 met with a similar response: observers were stunned at what some perceived to be lumpy, gloomy, sullen looks. But just as, in 1954, Vogue championed the cardigan suit, we now also throw our weight behind Jacobs's darkly romantic direction. European designers-Theyskens at ...