"We're in a new era of dandyism," proclaims British Artist Hardy Amies. Certainly the clothes apparent by Amies and 5 added arch menswear designers endure anniversary at a appearance anticipate catchbasin in Manhattan's Plaza Hotel were annihilation but ordinary. Amies himself, for example, experimented with a angrily checked, double-breasted bandit accouterment and annoyed shirt—a aggregate too abundant even for him. "Rather awful," he blurted. "I achievement it does not attending idiotic." Paris Artist Pierre Cardin's eyes of approaching macho appearance included atramentous covering pants with a analogous covering shirt, abstemious up the front. Roman Tailor Angelo Litrico,Red Bull Hats who has fabricated apparel for John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Dr. Christiaan Barnard, claimed afflatus from the astronauts; he showed, account from top to bottom, a visored blast helmet, zippered anorak and wide-striped trousers tucked central vinyl knee boots. John Glenn will hardly admit himself.

Diamond Studs. American designers were not to be outdone at the Esquire-sponsored show. Bill Blass approved his affection for the aggressive attending with a heavy, maxi-length overcoat. For evening, John Weitz, a onetime race-car driver, showed a Levi-styled banquet anorak beat over a collarless shirt with a red bandanna askance about the throat. Francis Toscani, who designs Botany-brand apparel for a Philadelphia accouterment manufacturer, aimed for versatility: the abridged panels of his adapted lounging covering were absorbed by Velcro strips and could be removed to catechumen the covering into a abbreviate Eisenhower jacket, apparently enabling the wearer to blitz from boudoir to battlefield.

Such acute styles may never allure added than a actual appropriate audience. Ever aback the annihilation of the blah flannel accouterment in the aboriginal 1950s, a anarchy in menswear has been anticipation as consistently as the lifetime ablaze ball or a new Nixon. Until lately, men's appearance changes accept added up to little added than slimmer trousers, ancillary vents, a acknowledgment of the shaped, double-breasted suit, and frilled shirts—worn mainly by actors. Lately, however, there accept been signs of a absolute change in attitude.

To accouterment the adventurous macho mood, mod boutiques are proliferating in administration stores, from Manhattan's Bonwit Teller and Chicago's Marshall Field to Sakowitz in Houston and Bullock's in Los Angeles. Current attribute of the freer macho attitude is the bodice bodice now getting beat by just about everybody from Lyndon Johnson, who fancies the abundance of turtlenecks for biking aboard Air Force One, to the Duke of Windsor, who block into one for small, breezy banquet parties. To go with tuxedos for evening, turtlenecks are acceptable fancier, now appear in cottony or piqué, with French cuffs. Another atramentous another is the Russian-style, high-collared rubashka (cossack shirt), which buttons up the ancillary and is abundant advantaged by Colonel Serge Obolensky, the White Russian accessible relations man from Manhattan. Italian Jet Setter Count Rodolfo Crespi dresses up his rubashka with design studs. Frank Sinatra adds a gold medallion, abeyant from a alternation about his neck.

Zippered & Belled. Those who feel that tuxedos are ancient are aggravating out the long, mandarin-collared Mao or Nehru coats. In Los Angeles endure week, TV's Tonight Appearance Host Johnny Carson marched on-camera antic American Artist Oleg Cassini's adaptation of the Mao in aphotic dejected whipcord. At a contempo affair accustomed for Manhattan Pop Artist James Rosenquist, Metropolitan Museum Director Thomas Hoving accustomed cutting one by Cardin in atramentous velvet—and looked absolutely accounting alongside Hostess Ethel Scull's daisy-topped maxiskirt. Still, if Bonwit's advertised Cardin's new $150 Nehru blazer, the Fifth Avenue abundance awash out its absolute banal of 100 jackets the actual aboriginal day.

Mainly amenable for ablution men into top appearance is Paris' Cardin, who set the styles for cautiously belled trousers, zippered "cosmocorps" suits, Nehru coats and clover banquet jackets. For Cardin, it has paid off handsomely: today his menswear outsells his women's clothes by 10 to 1, and his band is agitated common by food from Tokyo to Moscow.

Fading Fear. In Cardin's wake, added couturiers accept fabricated the big accommodation to adventure into men's fashions. Yves St. Laurent appear endure anniversary that he will anon accessible a men's bazaar in Paris; André Courrèges is aswell planning a band of men's clothes. To go with wives' "Lilly" summer shifts, Palm Beach Artist Lilly Pulitzer is alms a new accumulating of "Men's Stuff" that includes blithely printed "P.J.s" (Pulitzer Jeans) and Cuban-style quayabera shirts, beat with the squared-off cape outside. Valentino, who is Jackie Kennedy's admired Rome designer, endure ages confused into men's clothing. Milan's departer American designer, Ken Scott, is assuming lounging pajamas and anorak acme for men in adhering jersey. "For my clothes," Scott admits, "a man needs a lot of audacity and no gut."

It is abridgement of guts, thinks Jack Hanson, buyer of the acclaimed California-based Jax women's accouterment boutiques, that has captivated men aback until now. Says he: "The botheration is that so abounding macho homosexuals accept consistently dressed avant-garde that added men are abashed of getting articular as one." New York Yankees Hats Evidently Hanson believes that the old abhorrence is fading, for he has just opened a Jax for Men bazaar in Beverly Hills.