Fun, Sun and Dumb--This Spring's New Looks

If Carl Sagan is correct and nuclear winter is just around the corner the weathermen of American are in for a lot of trouble if purple rain who overrun the other three seasons how will these poor gentlemen be able to forecast the coming of nuclear spring?

But even without Satellite weather charts or the sprouting of pollution coated leaves one sure sign of the season of gladness would still remain with the regularity of an atomic clock, the fashion industry would continue to churn out glossy pages announcing the newest spring in notations in asbestonsz trousers or the propel width of radiation suits.

But with nothing worse that a last-ditch counter attack from Canadian air-masses to worry about, this season's trends have devoted themselves to more fun-to-wear garb. Which is all the better, since few people want to glance at lovely young ladies clad in stormwindows.

The major business this week in the mundus sartoris is the just completed Milan fashion show. If you can wear it or you can stuff it, the Italians know how to make it. While many of the always brilliantly acclaimed innovations will fall flat on their piazzas within a month, a select few will end up in your closet by late summer.

On the distaff side, the featured item for the spring is lots and lots and lots of wool coats, with trickily designed lapels and buttons solely designed solely to distinguish your coat from the thousands of cheaper models hanging in secondhand shops throughout the nation. The window pane checked Ferragomo coat is nice example, particularly when compared to the coccoon coat from Callaghan--an attempt, I guess, to evoke the fond memories of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.

Both of these lassies happen to be wearing leggings, a hangover from the Flashdance craze. Warmer than stockings and twice as uncomfortable, these calfhugging gifts from the great God of Lycra will be sneaking into the panty drawers of the same people who own a spectrum full of Danskins.

Italian designers are demonstrating their typically confused attitude toward the modern man. Giorgio Armani has given the tank-top his official seal--whoops, eagle--of approval, allowing the fashion-conscious male to bare all that Nautilus-forged muscle with a clean conscience.

On the other hand Gian Marco Venturi has provided an outlet for the Peter Pan in us it with a wing shouldered jacket and cowed collar. Leather specialist Gianni varsace has opted for a look that combines the best features of prep punk and cosa nostra the six stalwarts in coordinatingly cashing suits and ties demonstrates that designers have given up trying to teach men now to match their clothes and have decided to convert tastelessness into tastelessness. They matched sets. In the liberated '80's ther is no need for six guys to share the same closed.

Equally disastrous is this year's greenhouse look advocated supposed to resemble a refugee Technicolor Tarzan set in flower print fabrics that will attract every lovesick bee a five mile radius Norma Kaman's dresses and boxers almost manage to redeem the look, but' all just short.

One of the broader trends in women's wear is long and clinging cotton and knit sweaters that give the outlines but not the details. The winner in my knit-picking contest is Adrenne Vittadini's line of sweaters that includes liberal quotations from modern artists like Klee, Miro, and Picasso; if you can't great art, at least you can wear it.

While David Byrne's Big Suit has yet to nit the men's wear racks, the Big Shirt is in plentiful supply on the women's. Often convertible into tents or hammocks, the waist-long shirts are particularly nice for hiding the after-affects of two months worth of Hershey bars.

Men's casual wear has split right down the Continental divide. The "Miami Vice" look, expertly (and expensively) produced by Matinique, enters around loose cotton shirts with big sleeves and large front pockets formless cotton or linen jackets and wide-legged, high-wasted trousers, all in semi-bright primaries like blue, yellow, and greens. Though Vice is nice, most men prefer not to look like walking piles of unironed laundry.

At the other sun-center starting with an M, "the new Malibu look" has has asymmetrical shirts, pants with cargo pockets, pencil pockets, bomb bay pockets, and even pocket pockets, and wide-shouldered, durable windbreakers in every shade compatible with sand