leader of the pack; Isaac Mizrahi and furrier Alixandre indulge their animal instincts with a new line of shearling peacoats, slim-cut parkas, and safari jackets.

Byline: Sally Singer

As it's transpired, the ever-theatrical Isaac Mizrahi's so-called return to fashion has been a comeback but certainly not a reprise. Forswearing the seemingly compulsory career structure of a big-time designer-runway shows, ad campaigns, a single idealized client-he has redefined the uses to which a fashion imagination can be put: a swanky tux or a swishing ball dress for his line at Bergdorf's; a circle skirt or a floral plate for Target.

Now Mizrahi has turned his attention to outerwear for the furrier Alixandre. The results are typically Isaac-half cinematic glamour-puss, half all-American pragmatist, Joan Fontaine meets Mary Tyler Moore. "My favorite is the parka we made," says the designer, referring to a slim-cut hooded number in olive leather. "I love the proportions and the function of it. I just get realer and realer every second. Even my fantasies get realer. I don't long for fashion anymore, but for true design." In the matter of his work with Alixandre, this means a jean jacket of dark denim-hued leather, a nifty feminine trench in periwinkle suede, a peacoat in silver-foil shearling. There are toggle coats and ...