By Design; Evening Shades of Chanel

By CARRIE DONOVAN Published: September 25, 1990 SIGN IN TO E-MAIL PRINT Most women are on to the fact that a good-looking jacket is the linchpin of their daytime wardrobe. Whether it's slouchy Armani, snappy Bill Blass, tweedy Ralph Lauren, sexy Ungaro or stylish Chanel, the jacket pulls everything - old or new - together. Now the jacket is doing the same thing for evening. Look around at some of the successful, packed Manhattan restaurants like the new Le Comptoir. At the chic dinner hours they are filled with women of all ages looking very pretty in variations of the new dinner jacket costume. It's made up of a striking jacket in a pale tone, often banded in black trim, always quite fitted and covering the hips with curvy lines. The skirt underneath is short, usually in black or of a color that contrasts with the jacket. Big-scale dangling earrings, maybe some ropes of pearls wrapped around the throat and a small saucy handbag, probably on a shoulder chain, are the favored accessories. Usually the hose are flesh toned and the high-heeled sandals match them. But it is the jacket, with its longer, fitted shape, that is the real news.