Focus on Style.(Brief Article)

Fitting Rooms

Miyake Reborn

On the site where Issey Miyake launched his flagship Tokyo store 26 years ago, the Japanese designer has just reopened a shop to showcase his new line, Fete. Featuring pleated clothes that come only in black and silver, the designs are dressier, edgier and pricier than Miyake's popular Pleats Please line. The garments run from $150 for a sleeveless shirt to $1,385 for a dress, but are not nearly as striking as the store's centerpiece: a 2.4-meter-tall statue of a massive, round doll that opens to reveal a dressing room. Designed by Kyoto artist Kenji Yanobe, "Queen Mamma" has huge breasts, a cartoonish smiling face and arms covered with pleated sleeves. According to Miyake exec Sawako Ogitani, the idea is that a customer enters the womb, tries on the perfect dress and emerges, reborn, just in time for the evening's big fete.

High Heels

Wobbling Down The Runways

Have heels replaced hemlines as a leading economic indicator? If so, then next fall the world's markets will be soaring. At the fall-winter 2002 womenswear shows in Milan last week, Gucci, Prada and Dolce & Gabbana all sent models teetering down runways in ankle-breaking 11- centimeter high heels. In what one hopes wasn't an economic forecast, models at Gucci and Prada fell off their towering stilettos and crashed to the floor. In fact, as if to mirror today's seesaw financial markets, the Gucci model wobbled, then recovered, then toppled off her Betty Page pumps halfway down the runway. When she tried to get up, she fell again. She finally took off the shoes and finished her turn barefoot to resounding applause. Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana say they'll be making a shorter, nine-centimeter version. Looks as if they're hedging their bets.

Menswear