STYLE AROUND THE WORLD; AN AMERICAN VIEW (Published 1985) (2024)

Having moved back to the United States recently after 10 years abroad, I was invited to lunch at the home of a new acquaintance in Greenwich, Conn. I dressed as I had been accustomed to dressing for ''ladies' luncheons'' abroad, from Poland to Spain: I wore a silk blouse with a skirt and jacket, small pearl earrings and high-heeled leather shoes.

Of course, the other women were dressed in slacks and sweaters. Their clothes were much more practical and comfortable - much more sensible, in fact. It was a lesson in the difference between the American and the European approaches to dressing.

In general, European middle-class women are more elegant than their American counterparts. They are more formal, more conservative in their ideas of proper attire for specific occasions. They are not necessarily more stylish; their concept of style is simply different from our own. The American is more casual, more utilitarian, more practical, reflecting American life styles and values.

When European women come to New York for the first time, they are usually shocked by the amazing variety of styles, fashions, types of people and levels of dress they see on every street. They pass some of the world's most elegant women and some of the most casual; the most innovative and the most conservative. Many of these visitors go home impressed.

''I thought that American women had a wonderful freedom,'' said Teresa Maraval, a Spaniard who has traveled to the United States with her husband, a Spanish Government official. ''In my country, it would be hard to imagine just wearing anything you feel like wearing. You always think of the impression you make.

''I have seen some American women wear shorts or Bermudas even though they are very fat and would look much better in something else. But shorts are more comfortable, so they wear them. How wonderful to have that freedom!''

Wonderful, perhaps. But, like all freedoms, it has its price. In this case, freedom's gain is esthetics' loss.

The first thing I noticed here after my return was the popularity of slacks for almost any social occasion. Of course, European women also wear slacks, but they would never dream of wearing them as often or to as many places as Americans do. While a European woman might wear slacks and a sweater with high-heeled boots and a matching bag to go shopping, she would rarely wear them to the theater and never to the ballet or to a good restaurant.

Another distinctly American fashion that has not been adopted by Europeans is the track suit or tennis outfit, the ubiquitous suburban uniform; everyone here seems always on her way to or from a tennis match, undoubtedly preceded or followed by a brisk jog. Often, of course, that is actually the case. One reason for the popularity of this look is the widespread obsession with health and fitness in the United States.

While some aerobics classes and other exercise groups have caught on in Europe, the health movement has not reached the scale that it has here. In fact, daily jogging and exercise, the low-cholesterol diet and abstention from smoking and drinking are subjects of endless European fascination with those strange Americans. European men and women still smoke with the kind of devil-may-care abandon that Americans did before the Surgeon General's report. They consider giving up smoking and drinking a kind of rejection of the fun of life, a sort of puritanical weakness, a lack of machismo on the part of the men and joie de vivre among the women. European women engage in the quest for the perfect body, but prefer to do it while anesthetized, through plastic surgery.

Not only is the European woman more formally dressed than her American counterparts, she also pays more attention to detail. In Madrid, the average woman would consider it unseemly to walk down the Gran Via without her fingernails perfectly manicured. In summer, this would also apply to her toenails, which would be pedicured and painted a matching shade.

European women also pay a lot of attention to accessories. Shoes and bag, usually of fine leather, match one another and complement their outfits. Most women do not feel they pass muster unless they are wearing the right pair of earrings for a particular outfit, or a striking necklace or bracelet. Perfume is considered an essential part of a wardrobe.

When the European woman shops, she pays attention not only to style but to fabrics and quality. She looks for natural materials - silks, cottons, wools or linens - and feels a garment before buying it. Wash-and-wear items are considered a little tacky, as are Orlon sweaters, polyester pants and, in fact, all synthetics.

The guidelines governing European attire are not unlike those followed by New York professional women when dressing for work, especially if they work in the fashion world. But European women dress in this more formal style when meeting friends for lunch or getting together for coffee. ''They really make you feel like a frump,'' said a Greenwich woman who recently returned from a trip abroad.

Even behind the Iron Curtain, in countries most Westerners think of as fashion wastelands full of ill-fitting clothing in dreary designs, there is a coterie of people who know and follow the latest and most elegant fashions. The country where this is most noticeable is Poland.

Poles have traditionally traveled to the West more than any other group of Eastern Europeans. They know what is fashionable from their trips abroad and from the many copies of Vogue magazine they manage to acquire. With the help of these magazines, along with a pretty scarf from Paris, a bit of fabric from Rome and the Polish woman's traditional sense of style and femininity, they have become the Parisians of the Eastern bloc. The Vogue magazines may be a few months out of date, but the knowledge of style is impeccable, and many Polish women, with the help of the excellent and inexpensive Polish seamstresses, turn out beautiful high-fashion clothing for a fraction of the cost in the West.

Polish women have always been experts on skin care. Helena Rubinstein grew up in Poland and immigrated to the United States, the story goes, with jars of herbs and skin-care products from her country. Cosmetic salons exist, both private and state-run, where women go regularly for complete two-hour facials for the equivalent of about $5. Pollena, the Polish line of cosmetics, is well-known in the Eastern countries.

Going to lunch for the first time with an elegant Polish woman is a humbling experience for an American. The American, with everything available to her, may arrive in trousers and a crew-neck sweater. The Polish woman, with scraps and remnants and carefully collected treasures from abroad, will more than likely have put together a very chic and elegant ensemble.

There is a postscript to this recounting of the differences between European and American styles that helps to illustrate just how large is the psychological space between us.

I knew a woman in Poland who was a very famous songwriter and poet. She had an original mind and was known for her work, her long list of famous artist lovers and her eccentric attire. I had heard of her for a long time before I met her. She was described to me as Poland's George Sand, partly because of what was referred to as her masculine style of dress.

We finally met and became friends. She dressed almost always in the same kind of clothing - corduroy pants, a crew-neck sweater and leather Western-style boots. Her ''eccentric'' attire was almost identical to the everyday dress of millions of American women.