Donna Karan, who keeps trying to move American working women into dresses and other softer stuff, found herself admitting to me with a sigh last summer that her most successful recent collection featured snappy tailored jackets of pin-striped worsted.

A snappy fitted jacket with a shirred waistline is made in suede with lamb collar and cuffs and in leopard-printed poplin.

A stunning example is an English day suit (1911-13) of ivory-and-black striped wool trimmed with black satin, whose snappy jacket, worn over a simple long-line dress, sports big white buttons edged in black.

Simple and snappy jackets fit neatly and are shown with decorative sculptured leather belts, rather than any more elaborate accessories.

A bellhop in a snappy white jacket with red trim and gold buttons walks on stage, followed by a tense, nervous man named Garcin.

The snappy jacket that had ended up in her suitcase fit well over her harness and weapon.

Art Deco molding, wonderfully garish period chandeliers, ornate columns, mirrors and a hustling staff in snappy black jackets make for an exuberant scene.

Saville Row tailors would bite their thimbled thumbs with envy at Ben Zouine's custom hand-finished men's shirts, curve-skimming linen dresses with handmade silk closures, and snappy hooded jackets in 'Moroccan cashmere' (thick combed-cotton flannel).

And the snappy jackets draw attention on their own.

My smile widened at the memory, and I brushed nonexistent lint from the snappy short black jacket, the beads sewn into it glinting in the overhead light.