I can't help but think of Jerry Silverman this summer and its fashion offerings.

Dresses are back!

He's the man who predicted it -- and predicted it and predicted it!

If you haven't given up hope in shopping at this stage of your life, and you remember wearing dresses, please continue reading.

I have been surprised and pleased at the return of the dress.

As Maurice Chevalier might have said, "Ahhhh ... I remember it well."

No, I haven't bought one yet. I am still looking for a dress which suits my older age, quite frankly, because all that I am seeing says young, young, young.

Puffed sleeves or sleeveless or low-cut or halter necklines. They've passed me by.

That's OK. I am just happy to see dresses in the stores at long last.

There are young women who have never worn a dress, outside of attending the prom.

I realized, after my elation subsided, the styles I used to wear, except for the shirtwaist, are no longer for me. And maybe I can wear some of the plain sleeveless skimmer styles -- but this time around, with a jacket.

But this isn't about me, or my mother, or what I look best in at my age.

It is just fun seeing young people gravitate to dresses. They look so pretty.

Which brings me to Jerry Silverman. You will only recognize his name if you are over 50, but here was a man who made a name in the fashion industry as a dressmaker.

Although his styles were too short-waisted for me, they were popular, and he was one of the most successful manufacturers of women's better dresses in the industry. He started with a line of cocktail dresses for petites. We knew his name far better than the actual designer, Shannon Rodgers, his longtime partner. They were a successful team from 1959 until they sold the business in 1973.

What I remember most about Mr. Silverman was his warmth and generous nature, but also how, when the demand for dresses began to subside in favor of pants in the early '70s, he would begin each press showing with big news: "The dress is coming back!"

He believed it or wanted to believe it. He wanted fashion writers to spread the word, but it would never be the staple in a women's wardrobe it once was.

I look at pictures from early working days, and I was always wearing a dress, if not a suit (with a skirt). The pants boom had not yet begun.

Mr. Silverman died in 1984, his partner Mr. Rodgers in 1996.

Before they died, they both became associated with Kent State University (Rodgers was born in Ohio), which became the recipient of a collection of fashion, historic costumes, paintings and decorative arts which the two gentlemen had collected in their lifetimes.

The Kent State University Museum housing all of these items is affiliated with an adjacent School of Fashion Design and Merchandising. It opened in 1985.

So, as I travel the stores, I have to think 2007 might just be the year Mr. Silverman's prediction would have been right on the money -- at last.