spring's leading ladies 5. twinkle; Wenlan Chia proves that it's possible to produce a sophisticated collection without losing your whimsy along the way.

Byline: Irini Arakas

The fall of 2000 was when I had my first true fashion attempt. I was working in an art gallery, taking night classes at F.I.T., and hand-knitting very small-size sweaters with very large needles and thick yarn. It was a quirky line of cover-ups, like baby clothes for dolls," says Taiwanese designer Wenlan Chia of her label, Twinkle. There is nothing childlike about Chia's collection for spring 2005. Gone are the overtly girly, overly shrunken pom-pom knits of Twinkle past.

The Twinkle vibe, which Chia has developed over eight seasons, has always involved mixing fun and innocent motifs (cherry blossoms, castles, umbrellas) with fine knitwear-her popular Crayola-hued intarsia cashmeres sell in more than 100 stores nationwide-but it is the debut of her silk-chiffon prints fashioned into cocktail ...