Polished panache: Lady style

See by Chloe coat

I have noticed a return to a way of dressing, and I'll bet you have, too, especially if you have 30-something friends or children.

The lady look is back, sitting with crossed ankles amidst us.

(Shown, See by Chloe coat, Neiman Marcus, $545.)

Wonder Woman as lady

The newly-married Kate, Duchess of Cambridge personifies this consciously-groomed approach. So does Victoria Beckham (when wearing her own line), Michelle Obama and Lynda Carter.

Lady style favours dresses, skirted suits, structured bags, hats, nude stockings, classic cardis, perfect colourful lips, deliberate colour coordination.

Lady is unmistakably feminine; her innate propriety lends sexiness, but with the shades pulled. A lady need not flaunt her charms.

For years, lady style was something I watched from, say, across Bendel's tea room, admiring the composed possessors as if they were elegant canaries.

In the '80s and '90s, most lady dressers were my age or older. It was a look one earned, socially and financially. As if a skipping stone, "lady" flew over many 50-something women who were thrilled to get into Eileen Fisher and out of a girdle, to find new life in the current decade.

The Good Wife at work

Lady does not merely lunch; she goes to work: Joanna Margulies, playing lawyer Alicia Florrick in "The Good Wife" started the series as a navy lady, then added more colour as her character gained confidence and clout.

I've come to admire lady style, though have not worn the full-on version since the days when my mother bought my Peck & Peck suits. There is a control underpinning the style, and I feel like I'm in someone else's clothes, someone more well-behaved and composed.

And lady is typically svelte, able to inhabit a demanding cut like this Giambattista Valli gingham dress (from Barneys; price, $3,000), which she might pair with Prouenza Shouler lazer-cut orange pumps ($695 at Barneys), because sometimes the lady is a vamp.

Lady at the mall

Caroline Charles crombie

In the mid-range, Talbot's have staked a claim on lady, offering endless variations of slightly chaste ensembles, more polished in print than in the shops. They are mining the Kelly-Hepburn Lady Manual, but without really good fabrics, the clothes are not enchanting.

The best of lady can be coaxed into cool; Vivienne Westwood or Caroline Charles' impeccable pieces would take a sharp shootie and some funky jewelry. I'd love Charles' wool crepe Crombie jacket with its velvet collar (£695) to wear with jeans.

Once you meet her standards for fit and quality, lady style rewards you with clothes that last. I can't remember when I bought the few lady pieces (navy silk pants, Hermes shirts) in my wardrobe. But isn't that just like a lady?

She never tells her age.