On Thursday I will sit down for my first Thanksgiving in America in 12 years. Since 1996, I've been eating my turkeys in London, where it is still a bit of a struggle to get canned pumpkin for the pies - although, thanks to Waitrose, it has got easier - and where the event is generally regarded as a bit of a curiosity. And though, as a rule, I am a fan of individuality, in this case I think it will be nice to feel not so much "apart" as "a part". After all, there is newly much to be thankful for, starting with the president-elect and the extraordinary feeling of political romance he brought with him. (I am not talking of the Sarkozy/Bruni kind of romance, but the soft-focus hopefulness enveloping the American democratic process.)

And then there are Obama's good suits, and his wife's use of herself as a vehicle to promote a new generation of American designers. There's no doubt the US fashion industry is in the midst of giving some thanks of their own.

Certainly, at their recent 5th Avenue store opening, Gela Nash-Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy, the Juicy Couture girls/creative directors, were giving thanks, using a big party where the Harlem Boys Choir sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in Juicy pink robes to "give back to the city and customers who give us so much", according to Nash-Taylor. (Literally "give": Juicy is currently a $600m company, and their chief executive thinks they can reach $2bn in five or so years, economy notwithstanding.)

"When things are bad you have to have fun!" said Nash-Taylor, pre-event. "Our Juicy family" - all 600 or so of them who showed up at the opening - "deserves it!"

After the party, Skaist-Levy and Nash-Taylor were heading back to Los Angeles, to their respective Thanksgivings in their respective "Georgian colonial" and "English manor" homes, where they would preside over tables in their respective "Martha Stewart-tastic" and "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire" looks, the latter involving "long feathers in my hair," which is not normal Thanksgiving-wear (unless you were one of the original native Americans at the Plymouth feast) - but it is very Juicy.

For most of us, though, Thanksgiving is a hard holiday to dress for, being not about consumerism as we have come to define it - the purchasing of stuff - but actual consumption: of food. At the same time, it has an oddly ascetic edge, having been initiated by the Pilgrims, who tended to come to the table in their white collars and buttoned-up black dresses. Most comfort dressing that is good for comfort eating, like the velour tracksuits that originally made Juicy famous, is not necessarily good Puritan wear. When I was growing up, my great-aunt Lily always wore trousers and a devoré blouse, and by the end of dinner she had inevitably unbuttoned her waistband.

. . .

Personally, I spent years struggling with the dress code - a suit seems too professional, but a cocktail dress is too party-ish; jeans and trousers are often too casual, and so on - until a few seasons ago, when Miuccia Prada created what is to me the perfect Thanksgiving dress in her Miu Miu collection: round-necked, with a little white collar; mid-calf, but vaguely cheongsam in silhouette, with narrow three-quarter length sleeves; all in batik-like print. It is both very discreet, comfortable, and a little sexy. Now it's my fail-safe dinner party staple, having transcended the holidays.

Interestingly, it's not that dissimilar from a number of dresses around at the moment. I don't know if it's because of the general mood, which has (Juicys aside) understandably swung away from the showy and celebratory, and turned both sombre and sober - both very Puritan adjectives. Or maybe it's because of the Obama effect (which to be honest isn't that different, Michelle Obama having done more to promote non-threatening, always appropriate while faintly jazzy, shoulder- covering, knee-length-and-below dresses than perhaps any woman), but suddenly a large percentage of dresses are political-occasion-correct.

I think here of Jil Sander's three-quarter-sleeved, front-zipped grey sheath; the dark grey round-necked cap-sleeved version at Bottega Veneta and the double-collared version at Calvin Klein. I think of Yves Saint Laurent's strict tweeds, and Prada's bib-front grey shirt worn over a polo-neck and below-the-knee pencil skirt. Their subversion is so discreet that early American minister Cotton Mather would have approved.

There is a catch, of course: many of these dresses are constricting. But for those on diets, that might serve as a good reminder of the need to limit one's consumption - which is also a very "now" sort of thing, since in the past the unrestrained feast served as a kind of breaking of the dam, leading traditionally to the biggest shopping weekend of the year (ie next weekend). In the current market, such budget-busting seems unlikely to happen, and the dresses may be a useful reminder to rein it all in - even if you have to buy them in the first place.

vanessa.friedman@ft.comMore columns atwww.ft.com/friedman