Best Trends of 2006

They’re vamping as if they just stepped out of a time machine and into a flashbulb-popping, klieglight-strafing premiere at a grand and now sadly gone RKO movie palace.

In real life, head-to-toe styling that evokes Old Hollywood screams overkill, so don’t try this at home.

But for these women, it’s as much a performance as singing for your supper. So let the crowd roar.

Why go mod when you can go modern?

It’s no longer novel when a young actress reinterprets what it means to get all dressed up by rejecting the standard big-night-out silhouette for structure and shapes that are freer, easier, not as overt, yet equally flattering.

By making the unexpected less unexpected, these women generate as much of a fresh breeze as they do a photo op.

Friends, Lovers, Countrywomen! ’Tis nobler to express your inner Austen-stoked dreaminess than to suffer, for there are now ways to do it without looking as if you escaped from a sachet drawer.

Captured in simple forms and contours, the ruffles, ruches and lace insets that whisper romanticism can eschew costume drama for a refreshing loveliness. Just leave off the locket.

Banish brocade, tear off the tiers, and bag the ball gown.

Why retie a ribbon, straighten a bow or fluff a crinoline when you can step into something sleeker than a whippet with a summer haircut?

There are no pleats to adjust, no big skirt to step on, no cumbersome train to practice kicking. And if you’ve done Pilates with diligence and avoided that cheesecake, well, ain’t you the lucky one!

“Hey, Guys! Over Here!” Since looking good is no longer enough to get noticed, one must consider the merits of sticking one’s neck—or something—out.

One approach remains stunningly effective—taking a plunge.

However, Charlize’s daring is a stylistic one: Love it or not, her gown is graphic, original and, on her 6-foot-plus-in-heels frame, in proportion. She was riveting. (OK, you had to be there.)

One heartening evolution is women reveling (sartorially) in their age.

How welcome is the ingénue neither overwhelmed in fabric nor upstaged by carats.

What a pleasure to see the shapely one embracing her arcs; the all-grown-up trusting sleek confidence over divatronics; and the mature woman who knows choosing tailored simplicity no longer means she’ll be ignored.

In Hollywood timing is everything. You wouldn’t open a serious movie over the Fourth of July weekend.

If your preview has Oscar buzz, you hold it till Christmas. Any of these dresses would get lost in the shuffle on Oscar night.

But at an indie première, a press luncheon or an event promoting someone else, they exhibit enough graceful restraint to make photographers strain to get the shot.