Shelley Long will look nothing like the...

Shelley Long will look nothing like the buttoned-up barmaid she plays on TV’s “Cheers” when she co-hosts the Emmy Awards show Sunday night with David Letterman. Alvin Colt, the show’s award-winning costume designer, says Long will look “sophisticated and sexy” in three outfits he’s designed for her. One is a Grecian-style, one-shoulder, opalescent jersey gown, another is black taffeta and organza “with a swirly skirt” and the third is a “very glitzy fuchsia number” with jeweled bodice and layers-of-chiffon skirt. Colt, who costume-designed the TV Tony Awards for 15 years and the Emmys for three, says he’s asked all the on-camera men to wear black tuxedos and all the women to wear “lots of color.”

More fashion reports on Sunday night’s Emmy awards: Actress Peggy McCay, nominated for the nighttime series “Cagney & Lacey,” is wearing a rose-colored Dior gown with a train and long, black velvet gloves, we hear from her spokesman, Frank Liberman. Barbara Eden, an award presenter, is going gold in a strapless, floor-length gown and a bugle-beaded jacket by Bob Mackie’s teammate, Ret Turner. “Ret designs her formal wear,” we hear from Eden’s associate, Eileen Duhne.

Furthermore,Markie Post of “Night Court” asked designer Ellene Warren to style an outfit she would wear to the Emmy Awards show and happened to mention that her husband, actor Michael Ross (he played Rum Tum Tugger in “Cats”) needed a tuxedo for that evening. So Warren is dressing him too. Warren tells Listen she’s launching a menswear collection in November and Ross’ “classic tux with outrageous details” is similar to one in her new line. Along with the suit’s black silk brocade lapels and trouser stripes, its silk wing-collar shirt and diamond studs and cuff links, Warren reports, the clincher is a metallic purple lame bow tie flocked in black velvet. She adds that Post’s outfit that evening will be a backless black bodysuit trimmed in rhinestones with a rhinestone-trimmed sarong skirt featuring a jagged hem.

Dallas came to New York to honor some Angelenos. On Monday, at Manhattan’s society hangout, Mortimer’s, the Dallas Market Center gave out its 11th annual American style awards, one of which went to L.A.’s Eletra Casadei for her dress designs. Casadei almost out-flashed the silver statuette she accepted, dressed in a silver lame, pleated, one-shoulder number from her Casadei line. Also honored were Hollywood celebrities Donna Mills of “Knots Landing” and Gary Collins, host of “Hour Magazine.” Mills looked stellar in a white wool crepe suit with satin shoulders and trim, and Collins looked dapper in a navy suit from Giorgio. But it was Collins’ wife, former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley, in a black David Hayes suit with gold embroidery, who charmed the Texans the most with her Southern-accented evaluation of the Miss America pageant her husband had hosted over the weekend. Mobley told Listen she was disappointed with one aspect of the Dallas fete. She didn’t get to really meet Oscar de la Renta. “He rushed in, told me he liked my jacket and then rushed out,” drawled the brunette beauty.

Favorite T-shirt of the week is for fashion purists. Spotted by Listen at the SEHM spring ’87 menswear shows in Paris, it’s by a London company called Science Automatic, and the front of it reads: “200% Cotton.”

We’ve heard of ships in bottles, but this one’s in a class by itself. Parfums Jean Patou is about to launch a silver-finish, Deco-style replica of the cruise ship Normandie that first set sail from Paris in 1935. This one is filled with Patou’s Normandie perfume, first introduced to coincide with the luxury liner’s maiden trip. Samantha Drake, spokeswoman for the fragrance firm, says a limited edition of 500 scent-ships, each hand numbered on the base, will set sail for the States in October. Ticket price is $500.

Also in October, from Patou in Paris: Christian Lacroix, the house’s red-hot, new couture designer, will bring to Los Angeles his fall collection--including all the outrageous hats and frocks that set the fashion world on its ear this year. The whole shebang will be presented at a black-tie extravaganza on Oct. 30 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel (tickets are $175 per person). Judith Szyf, assistant French trade commissioner in Los Angeles, tells Listen that the event will benefit the Costume Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and will kick off the French trade exhibit, which takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center Oct. 30 through Nov. 2.

From what we hear, Cybill Shepherd and Joan Collins will wear plenty of pearls this fall. Collins and a wardrobe shopper for “Dynasty” went on a buying binge at the Kenneth Jay Lane boutique in Beverly Hills and picked up paste-pearl earrings, necklaces and pins to keep Alexis Carrington happy for several weeks at least, says Melissa Parker of the store. Then a wardrobe shopper for “Moonlighting” bought a bundle of the same for Cybill Shepherd to wear as Maddie Hayes on that show. Parker adds that Shakira Caine phoned the boutique, not looking for pearls but for Lane. “She made an appointment with him, for herself and two friends,” Parker says. Lane is commuting to California from New York these days, getting ready to open new shops in Costa Mesa and San Francisco as well as L.A’s Beverly Center.

Willie Nelson’s wife, Connie, and Roger Miller’s wife, Mary, certainly go out of their way to get a haircut. Each travels to Umberto’s hair salon in Beverly Hills about once a month from homes in Austin, Tex., and Santa Fe, N.M., Susan Price of the salon tells Listen. This time, she says, they extended their visit long enough to spend an added $500 each on jeweled hair combs, ribbons and barrettes they found in the shop.

When ABC-TV’s new detective show, “Sledge Hammer!” airs next week opposite “Miami Vice,” it certainly won’t be competing for fashion ratings. The show’s comic star, David Rasche (an alumni of Chicago’s Second City improvisational group) may even capture the title as the worst dressed of sitcom’s leading men. Deborah Kelman, a spokeswoman for the show, says Rasche’s wardrobe includes neckties decorated with onions and chess pieces, “among other goshawful clothes.” However tasteless his togs, most of them are blue, Kelman says. The show’s costume designer, Tracy Tynan, researched detective fashion and found out most private eyes are ex-cops who never quite get out of their blue uniforms.

For a new look at Latin, the folks of Miami recently staged the first annual young Hispanic talent-award show. With super-luminary style setters Oscar de la Renta of the Dominican Republic, Carolina Herrera of Venezuela and Adolfo of Cuba to guide them, faculty members of Miami’s International Fine Arts College and New York’s Fashion Institute of Design selected three fashion students for scholarship awards as a grand finale to the show. And the winners are (drum roll, please): Milagros Lora of the Dominican Republic, Jorge Ponce of Cuba and Ana Dieguez, a first-generation American with Cuban parents.