February's icy fingers may be clutching at the throat of the homeless, but for the 
smug superchic of couture, winter winds sound the glorious call of summer fashion 
millions.   Design gurus and supermodels were whisked from their limos into the 
Hotel Palmer Hotel's extravagantly overheated Coconut Cream Room, where a decadent 
assembly of fashion scribes and bourgeois ninnies awaited the unveiling of the 1997 
North Atlantic summer collection.

Backstage, the high-priced T & A was ajiggle with anticipation, while an army of 
makeup minions, papparazi and fauning fashion trash made the behind-the-scenes 
preparations look so much more glamourous than they were.

LHR:	What's the scene here?

WOM:	I don't know.  What's going on?

LHR:	I thought you would know.

WOM:	I thought you would know.

LHR:	Who does know?
	
WOM:	Nobody.

LHR:	Why do you think everyone's so excited?

WOM:	I don't know.  Money, I guess.

MAN:	Can I see you passes.

LHR&WOM:	Here.

MAN:	Thank you.

LHR:	WE ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE!  THIS IS THE SCENE!

Swiss design sensation, Rudi Anschluss, offered up another round of art pieces 
intended to make women despair over their utter unwearability.  It took cosmeticians, 
dressers and mechanical engineers four hours and a pound of butter to squeeze covergirl 
Claudia Shickelgruber into the lanes with Anscluss' new line, Autobahn.  Complete with 
provocative signage, soft shoulders and elegantly bevelled onramps, there were no 
limits on this stretch of supermodel highway.

But when all was said and done --and believe me, it was -- this season belonged to the 
new darling of the industry, master minimalist Paolo Martini.  Not surprisingly for the 
Club of Rome's most promising apprentice, Emporio Martini was all malnutrition and shock 
therapy, the enforced starvation an essential part of Martini's daring crusade to stamp 
street fashion with a food bank look that's sensually skeletal and casually impoverished.

The most striking feature of the Paolo Martini collection was its liberal use of scissors, 
as lapels, linings, buttons, cuffs, zippers, hemlines and cleavages were mercilessly 
slashed -- sacrificed to a lean, mean femininity with the classic allure of S & M.  
Martini's waif-like models wore thin leather belts tightened one hole past the pain 
threshold, the only thing holding together  sparse, transparent fabrics of drab earthy tones.


SFX:	BACKSTAGE MARTINI

PAOLO:	To me, fashion is back, and the use of fabrics is so important now, but 
	nothing excessive...

LHR:	Paolo, I couldn't help noticing that you chose only the youngest and skinniest 
	girls, and that you drove them ruthlessly.

PAOLO:	Very young, very skinny -- that's femininity for today -- sexy but without 
	the vulgarity of fat.

LHR:	That's so true.

PAOLO:	I say to the girls, there is no free lunch, so why bother to eat ?

LHR:	Nothing?

PAOLO:	Nothing.  Don't eat.  Why?

LHR:	I couldn't agree more.  Paolo, thank you!

The climax of Martini's show was a daring homage to child poverty, featuring  Skin Deep 
Magazine's underage model of the year, Bambi--at 13, already a polished veteran of the 
fashion circuit.   The little dear strutted her knowing stuff in a vampish fashion fairy 
tale for modern times that had all the titillation of Little Red, Goldilocks and Hanself 
and Gretel rolled into one.   Martini's revealing capes, risquee rips and high-riding 
cut-offs proved once again that, as far as the '90s go,  youth, vulnerability and discipline 
are the sexy combination to beat.

For the Great Eastern, I'm contributing fashion editor Lawrence Hiscock-Royce in St. John's.