* Designer talk: Ralph Lauren has firmly...

* Designer talk: Ralph Lauren has firmly denied rumors of poor health. Speculation surfaced in New York last week after he showed his spring collection. When the designer took his bows, it was obvious that he had lost at least 20 pounds and his first steps down the runway seemed uncertain. “The rumors . . . are totally untrue,” a spokesperson said. “He is in great shape. He’s been exercising and he’s lost some weight, but not a lot.”

* Blue Republican: Lee Atwater, the Republican National Committee chairman, has slipped into Nashville four times since September to play guitar and sing on a blues album with B. B. King, Isaac Hayes, Billy Preston and other artists. Atwater, a frustrated musician who performed at George Bush’s Inaugural ball, plans to donate proceeds from the record to charity.

* An earful: Former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was fitted with new hearing aids, allowing him to converse for the first time in months without having others write down their words. A hospital spokesman in Birmingham said Wallace, 70, “has a high-frequency loss. . . . It won’t be normal hearing, but it will be better.”