It’s Musical Chairs for Ungaro in L.A.

It is a rare event when Emanuel Ungaro hangs up his starched white tailor’s smock and makes a promotional appearance.

But the French couturier started a whirlwind 48-hour visit to Los Angeles Tuesday night that even includes a stop at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills (Thursday, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.) to promote his Diva perfume.

Other highlights of the designer’s stopover include an honorary tree planting and a black-tie dinner for more than 100, with a performance by the Garza Brothers, a Las Vegas dance act, and a scene from “Phantom of the Opera.” The events in Ungaro’s honor were dreamed up by Winnie Schweitzer, who owns the Rodeo Drive Ungaro Boutique. But Schweitzer and her husband, Peter, have done more to welcome the designer than plan an elaborate schedule: They have donated money to the Los Angeles Music Center “in the name of Ungaro.” And although the couple decline to name an exact figure, the contribution is large enough to qualify him for the founder’s list, which means the gift was a minimum of $50,000.

Earlier, in his Paris headquarters on the Avenue Montaigne, Ungaro expressed delight at the upcoming festivities, though he admits he has never been to the Los Angeles Music Center, and, in fact, has been to California only once or twice in the last 10 years.

“Every time I go somewhere I try to connect with music,” says the 57-year-old Ungaro (he once said if he hadn’t become a fashion designer he would have loved to have been a symphony conductor).

“Music is nourishment. Every single morning at 8:30 a.m., I listen to a Beethoven string quartet. There’s a fantastic architectural structure to Beethoven, something that I’ve been continually running after all my life. After lunch I always listen to opera.”

Known for making some of the sexiest dresses in Paris, Ungaro has always preached the importance of seduction with a capital S . His shirred draped and wrapped dresses and ultra-feminine suits are made from meticulously calculated riots of bright mixed prints and solid colors. Prices start around $1,500 for a dress and $2,000 to $3,000 for an ensemble, although he oversees more than 70 licensed product lines worldwide, including less expensive knitwear and ready-to-wear lines for women.

Ungaro has had his good and bad collections, but the one he showed most recently in Paris, his fall ’90 ready-to-wear line, was among the best. He perfected the international ethnic theme that was the strongest direction in all French fashion for fall and made the most of it with Russian and Central European-inspired prints and patterns, exuberant colors and lavish use of gold appliques, gilded leather and Lurex threads.

In the past, Ungaro’s mystique has had as much to do with his marital status as his steamy sense of style. He was single until just last fall. The longtime bachelor’s intense and brooding demeanor has been known to melt hearts. And his romantic attachments were the stuff of steady gossip.

He was considered one of the most eligible bachelors in town, with a business whose global sales reached about $30 million last year and a palatial summer home in Provence, among other assets.

Everyone was surprised when, after a very discreet five-year courtship of demure, blond, Laura Fanfani, who worked for Ungaro’s Italian manufacturing company, the couple announced their marriage last November. A baby, Ungaro’s first, is expected next month.

Twenty-five years after the founding of his fashion house, will his workaholic nature change when the baby arrives?

“No. I am still obsessed.”

With what?

“Sensuality of all kinds. I’m not just talking in sexual terms. It could also mean the joy of drinking a glass of wine or the look of someone you love.”

A baby, he says cautiously, “can only enrich my life.” But he says it will not change his routine. “Work is my life. My life is constructed around it.

“The greatest creators with a few exceptions have been men,” he continues with a hint of a smile.

“Their creative genius is born from frustration, you see, something like jealousy, because they can’t create the ultimate chef d’oeuvre , a child.”

Ungaro’s international fan club, heavy on social power, includes Ann Getty in San Francisco, Maria Shriver in Los Angeles, Jackie Onassis in New York and Marie Helene de Rothschild in Paris.

Born in Aix-en-Provence to Italian immigrant parents, the designer trained in his father’s tailor shop with his three brothers before leaving for Paris. He eventually landed a spot with Cristobal Balenciaga who had a profound influence on Ungaro’s work. After a brief stopover with Courreges, he founded his own tiny salon in 1965 with his then-girlfriend Sonja Knapp--who remains his amicable business partner.

Ungaro says he has noticed a change in fashion during promotional appearances. “Fashion has become an international taste. People all look the same now wherever I go,” he says regretfully.

Despite the success of his colorful designs in California, he wistfully adds, “I do hope Californians stay Californians just like I hope people from Provence continue to look like they’re from Provence.” Despite mass production and commercialization, “there is a mystery to fashion that obsesses me,” says Ungaro. “I am my own judge. That is my challenge. There was and still is provocation in what I do.”