Fashion 86 : Crinolines, Quiet Colors Among California’s Spring ’87 Designs

In a flurry of fashion shows last week, California designers scooped New York, London, Paris and Milan by being the first to put spring on the runway. They did it with clothes that are pleasing to the eye, soothing to the psyche.

After three days of non-stop fashion at the California Mart, the message is clear: In addition to the trendy and the offbeat (the usual spring staples), West Coast designers offer clothes so well-bred they often recall garden parties, croquet matches and long sea voyages. It means that the young and the restless won’t revel in all of the season’s offerings, but the mature and the aspiring will have endless options.

The emphasis remains on flattering contours (peplums, nipped waists, snug hips, pleats, long flowing skirts), fine fabrics and tasteful sensuality.

What they lack in frenzied excitement, the clothes make up in class and a certain aura of escapism.

Jessica McClintock’s ivory, linen and lace ankle-length dress, for example, is a remembrance of romantic times past. Other designers bring back the good old days with large eyelet collars and full skirts over crinolines.

And both Christine Albers and Bonnie Strauss provide exotic escapes via rhumba-ruffled skirts, imaginatively combined in Albers’ case with a silky, crinkled, cardigan jacket.

Without gimmicks to cloud the horizon, fabrics move into the spotlight. Linen leads the pack, looking rich on its own and richer yet combined with lace--or with leather, which is how Ron Finley (for Drop Dead) treats it in a black, body-embracing skirt and top.

It’s a season short on bright, primary California colors, long on the classic spring nuances of white, ivory, black, red and navy.

McClintock shows black knit skirts trimmed with Nottingham lace, topped by ivory pullovers. And James Tarantino, winner of the Mart’s Rising Star award, earns his prize for a collection of impeccably tailored linen separates in black, navy and red.

With minimalism the rule, little things mean a lot, and buttons--frequently the only decoration--take on importance. Commonly used in twos, they turn up in rows of five on the sleeves of Rafael Montealegre’s waist-length nautical jacket, which he pairs with a short, white ruffled skirt.

Leon Max, in his collection of picturesque separates, which won the Mart’s California Designer Award, uses ruffles on a long white skirt and tops it with a collarless redingote.

Along with an abundance of white, the California trends that consumers will find in the stores next spring include:

--Cutouts front or back or both--on blouses and jackets.

--Stripes of any kind from ticking to madras to nautical (freshly interpreted by Barbara Lesser for Felicity, in a white, blue and orange combination).

--Quiet colors, such as olive, beige, khaki, gray, taupe, cream or raspberry (a color used by Nancy Heller in a group of linen jackets, walking shorts, baggy Capri-length pants and miniskirts).

--A waist, hip and fanny emphasis that means extra workouts at the gym.

--Clever prints that range from Joan Martin’s mazes and Warren Z’s puzzles to Dorothy Schoelen’s fish print for Platinum.