Betsey Johnson

NEW YORK, February 6, 2007
By Laird Borrelli
Sending out invitations slipped into pairs of white gloves and lining her runway with tables set for tea, Betsey Johnson established a "School of Charm" for her latest show. Could this really be the same designer whose cheeky antics have included those "GUYS ♥ B.J." tees? Apparently so. "Fall is more elegant, refined—more grown-up," the perennial teenager said. "We have to be more about the cake than the icing."

Of course, Betsey wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. Her prototypical sex-bomb baby still strode the catwalk in a suit with pinup short shorts, and any number of blowsy (okay, to be frank, tarty) dresses. Meanwhile, the more mature—if not strictly demure—minx dressed the part in formfitting frocks with a whisper of Dietrich, and a really pretty brown blouse with white polka dots, paired with a suspendered pinstripe skirt in a length that Johnson evocatively described as "longer, leaner, and more swayable."