Playboy's Fall & Winter Fashion Forecast

Fashion flash: This season's youth movement has nothing to do with age. It's all about how you wear your suit. With stretch fabrics and earth-tone colors, designers are striving to create a suit with many lives, one for all occasions this side of a tailgate party. The same suit that will make you look good at work is also designed to project a young, fresh attitude. Simply add a style statement such as a clingy V-neck or a dark shirt and tie and act as if you're about to meet a woman. Ignore the setting or potential dry-cleaning bills. If you move around comfortably, the crowd will follow. In fact, women like suits so much, they're wearing them, too. Be really cavalier and loan her your jacket as a mini-bathrobe. The only style that won't work for the loose look is a double-breasted jacket--it's too formal. Nightlife is getting dressier, the corporate world is growing more relaxed and, thanks to long hours, casual Friday is looking an awful lot like Friday night. You can't dress up a pair of jeans (we tried that in the Seventies, thank you), but these days you can make a suit work better for you than your best one-liners. Your friends will be impressed with the results--just make sure your new ladyfriend returns your jacket after breakfast.

This is not your father's pinstripe. We selected three different styles of the venerable suit to show that it's not just for bankers anymore. Facing page: On the left, a horizontally striped turtleneck ($270) provides a subtle contrast to the navy wool suit ($1100); both are by Joop. The jacket is a three-button job and the flat-front pants are loose-fitting and drapey. The round-toe loafers (by To Boot New York Adam Derrick, $285) and the belt (by Boss Hugo Boss, $125) are made of calfskin. The flanker to the right is also sporting a three-button suit ($1700). It's by Ermenegildo Zegna, and this time the pants have a double pleat. The dress shirt ($225) from the Calvin Klein Collection has a snap collar. Boss Hugo Boss did the brown tie ($85); the matching leather loafers come from Prada ($495). She's wearing a suit by Whistles of London at Showroom Seven, boots by Patrick Cox, a tie by Camouflage and not much else.

At left, this chalk-stripe suit is topped by a one-button jacket. The outfit is by Donna Karan Collection: The jacket ($1395) and matching wide-cut pants ($595) can be bought separately. The iridescent shirt costs $350, the dark tie is $90. The one-button stance is back this year. It presents a narrow wedge of shirt, elongates the torso and makes you look taller.

Facing page: For a suit that counts, look to Boss Hugo Boss. Stay with us, now. It's a three-piece suit made of wool stretch; the jacket is single-breasted and has four buttons; the vest has six buttons; the pants have one peat. It all adds up to $1050 and looks even richer thanks to the wild mock turtleneck by Missoni ($610). This season, low-cut turtlenecks and shallow V-necks lend an energetic air to your outfit--everyone should own at least one. The trick is to treat the most elegant garment in your wardrobe as if it were sportswear. Of course, for this approach to work it helps to stick with solid tones. The wool mélange, four button suit ($990) and olive wool T-shirt ($150) on this page are from the Calvin Klein Collection. The wool V neck--let's call it pumpkin--gives the outfit pop. It's by Ermenegildo Zegna and costs $650. One reason suits have supplanted sports jackets this season is that you can always wear the top alone. Also, if you wear the full ensemble at times when you would normally wear a sports jacket, you'll elevate your look without appearing uptight. It's more of a European notion. Boa girl is wearing a sweater by Han Feng; the smiling beauty on this page is wearing a dress by Calvin Klein.

Pick up the pace. Emporio Armani joins the party with a wool-and-viscose suit and double-pleated pants (this page, left; $895). Notice how the one-button jacket displays the embroidered shirt (also Emporio Armani, $290). The square-toed loafers by To Boot New York Adam Derrick cost $255; the rose-tinted sunglasses are by Paul Smith Spectacles from Oliver Peoples ($240). This season also marks the return of tweed (right). With such modern elements as a three-button jacket and a stretch fabric of wool and cashmere, the Donegal tweed suit by Boss Hugo Boss ($950) comes alive paired with a royal blue Boss Hugo Boss shirt ($125) and tie from Protocol by Robert Talbott ($105). For a minimalist approach (at left on the facing page), we've matched a three-button flannel suit ($1530) with a poplin oxford shirt ($303) and a solid silk tie ($98). The outfit is by Prada. The three-button suit by Trussardi at for right ($2145) has flat-front pants and is made of conservative wool twill. The calfskin belt is by Boss Hugo Boss ($125). The suit is set off by a striped wool-blend V-neck from Ermenegildo Zegna ($250) for a loose, debonair look. It's for the man who knows the basics but is not, to twist a phrase from Seinfeld, a suit nazi.