Fashion : A SPECIAL REPORT: SPRING INTO FALL : Shopping : The Old West Rides Anew

THE TV SHOW: “The Young Riders,” Monday nights at 8 (for the season’s two-part finale) on ABC.

THE FORMULA: Five handsome young hunks are put in life-threatening, buddy-bonding situations as riders for the Pony Express. Carrying firearms and riding fast horses, they cruise across the American West of 1860, fighting off hostile Indians and outsmarting ne’er-do- wells on prime-time, school-night television.

THE SCENE: The series is shot in Mescal, Ariz., where the brilliant desert sunshine and dusty yellow skies infuse the production with a golden glow. Low camera angles make the characters appear oversized and heroic against the landscape, and, coupled with extreme close-ups, the visual effect is similar to contemporary fashion advertising.

THE LOOK: Lots of fringed suede and interesting accessories give the young guns more flash than the usual period cowboy. Frances Hays, costume supervisor for “The Young Riders,” says she dresses the men “to look like the rock stars of the 1860s.” Through research, Hays found that the Pony Express riders had groupies--young women who turned out to see the men as they passed through town. And the riders’ salaries bought extras, such as Sunday go-to-meeting clothes and dancing clothes.

The rider with the flashiest style is the young Buffalo Bill Cody, played by Stephen Baldwin (pictured), brother of Alec. He wears fringed suede pants and a long buckskin suede coat with turquoise bead trim and a beaded gun belt. (This get-up is tame compared to the extravagant regalia Cody wore in his later years as a Wild West showman, Hays said.)

Buck Cross (Gregg Rainwater) is the troubled American Indian who wears a reptile vertebra on a silver hoop in his pierced ear. It looks more West L.A. than old West, but Hays explained that the accessory was common among Paiute men.

Another touch that seems more now than then is the bandanna-wrapped bald head of Ike Swain (Travis Fine). Hays, was quick to point out this is a matter of practicality not affectation, “bald heads and bandannas go back centuries.”

THE STORES: All of the costumes for the men, including hats and boots, come from United American Costume in North Hollywood. Hays is a stickler for authentic detail and insists on using a costume shop for the wardrobe pieces. All of the pants are made of canvas, wool or leather, with button flies. Fasteners such as leather toggles and rawhide strips are used on many of the jackets, and buttons are made of antlers or metal. For the women’s clothing and the men’s dress attire, Hays uses a paper-doll book from the 1860s as a reference.