Slick Tracy : Fashion: Besides T-shirts, movie characters inspire a line of slinky gowns, bejeweled accessories and, for the guys, snap-brim fedoras.
Trash those Batman T-shirts.
The clothes coppers, with adult designs on Dick Tracy and Breathless Mahoney, have arrived. And they mean business, Big Boy.
Inspired by the new comic book detective movie “Dick Tracy,” a handful of designers have already launched lines of movie tie-in fashions and accessories. But unlike the usual selection of sun visors, T-shirts and baseball caps blazing with a movie logo, Tracy togs are closer to actual movie costumes--play clothes for grown-ups.
Pertinent products range from roomy trench coats in Big Bird yellow, and gender-bending fedoras in felt or straw, to body-gripping goddess gowns with seductive slits up to your imagination. There are seriously silly watches with Dick Tracy’s (or is it Warren Beatty’s) mug on the face, and gaudy-glamorous jewelry made of fake diamonds, sapphires and black onyx that Breathless Mahoney (portrayed by Madonna) might wear. The first of the upscale loot is making an appearance in stores across the country, with more to come in the next several months.
“T-shirts are nice, but Madonna doesn’t wear one in the movie. She wears sequins and feathers and slits to here,” says Elaine Johnson, pointing to a place near her waistline.
Johnson is president of L.A. Glo, which has the license to stitch the Breathless Mahoney Collection, a satin and sequined line of about 30 skin-revealing party dresses that hit the racks last weekend at Judy’s, Nordstrom, Contempo Casuals, Windsor and J.C. Penney--in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and Chicago.
“The collection is doing very well because of the era it represents,” Johnson says. “The ‘30s and the ‘40s were exciting eras, and the film was the perfect vehicle to do this line.” The clothes, designed by Irene Zibecchi, a former student of Los Angeles’ Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, are “flashy,” certainly not meant for the shy, and definitely geared for a well-toned female physique.
“You have to want to be seen in these dresses,” Johnson says about the gowns--in mini and full lengths--that feature plunging necklines, plunging backs, slinky spaghetti straps and slits here, slits there, slits everywhere.
“The gowns were designed with a younger audience in mind”--more specifically, 16- to 30-year-olds with bods like Madonna’s.
“But we’ve also got suits that don’t plunge all the way down to the navel,” she quickly points out.
Johnson says prices range from $76 to $180. Many of the gowns are studded with rhinestones, sequins and adorned with feathers. The feathers in particular, Johnson says, “are very in.”
“Even if the movie is a bomb, we’ll still produce the line,” Johnson says, “because we’re expecting the line to do really well during the holiday season.”
Wearwolf Group Ltd. in New York is producing a yellow trench coat modeled after the one worn by the Dick Tracy character. The coat, which J.C. Penney carries exclusively, will be in stores in mid-July or early August. It features some of the same details as the original, designed by Milena Canonero, the film’s costume designer.
“It’s only a Dick Tracy trench coat if it’s double-breasted, has six buttons, patch and flap pockets, is belted at the waist and around the sleeves and has lapel holes in both lapels,” says Wearwolf spokesman Jeffrey Wolf. His company’s version is also lightweight, water repellent and unconstructed. It will retail for $130.
Jerry Straus, national sales manager for the men’s division of Drizzle Inc., a New York-based rainwear manufacturer, says his company is offering a Dick Tracy knockoff, too. The $345 yellow trench coat is made of a crinkly cotton-rayon blend, has leather-trimmed buckles on sleeve straps and tortoise-shell buttons. At the moment, Bloomingdale’s in New York is the biggest store to carry the coat. No West Coast retailer has ordered it yet.
The official Tracy snap-brim fedora ($27 for the felt version, $22 for the straw at J.C. Penney) is already ringing up register sales. In fact, fedora fever is leading the men’s headwear industry to project that 1990 sales of hats and caps will top a record $2 billion, says Susan B. Tildesley, director of the Headwear Institute of America.
Tildesley says the fedora (manufactured by Bollman Hat Co. of Adamstown, Pa., for Stockton-based Dorfman-Pacific) is available in muted yellow, gray and black felt, and features a wide-black band popularized by the original comic strip. For play-it-safe types, the style is also available in black, white and gray straw.
Tildesley says the hat is gaining popularity among women as well.
Carol Edwards, national spokeswoman for J.C. Penney, also predicts a Tracy head wear boom for men. “You won’t see a man wearing a yellow fedora to a business meeting, but you will see him wear one to a club and on the weekend.”
Edwards says the upscale trend in merchandising “of course will take off with the teens first because they’re into the campy stuff, but, if it takes off there, the interest will trickle into other segments of the market place, particularly with adults.”
Besides clothing and hats, accessories--particularly jewelry--are poised to make a splash. Wendy Gell of Wendy Gell Jewelry in New York, who will appear at Los Angeles Nordstrom stores Thursday through Sunday, has designed a slew of sleuth gems, including a $160 brooch of Breathless leaning against a rhinestone musical note.
“At first I turned the project down,” Gell says. “I didn’t think that I could make a beautiful line because the comic book characters were too grotesque. But then I heard they wanted pieces to resemble Madonna and Warren’s likenesses. I was blown away by the fact that real people were playing cartoon characters.”
Gell, who designed “Roger Rabbit,” “Fantasia” and “Wizard of Oz” pieces for Disney, has created Dick Tracy and Breathless Mahoney logo earrings, pins fashioned after the famed yellow fedora and a bejeweled faux watch--a replica of the film’s wrist radio. The prices range from $12 to $600, with the most popular items in the $30 to $80 range.
Peggy Low, Gell’s national sales manager, says, “Suddenly, at the last minute, we’re getting a rush of fast orders. The excitement for the movie has added to the excitement for the jewelry that Madonna wears in the film.”
Gell’s work apparently took Beatty’s breath away, too. Gell says he ordered 50 pieces of her jewelry for 50 friends.
But the bottom line on Gell’s success--and every other designer calling Dick Tracy to help ring up sales-- rests with moviegoers.
“I’ve got to get that feathered number Madonna wears,” says 19-year-old Trisha Gianelli, a Culver City doctor’s receptionist. She watched the movie at the Hollywood Pacific with a group of pals, all of them confessed Madonna copycats. The body-clinging black satin dress with a waist-high side slit is festooned with feathers around the neck. (Madonna wears it in a scene where she crawls across the top of Dick Tracy’s desk.)
“It’s not for the shy girl, that’s for sure,” she says. “But I think I can handle it.”
And where would she wear it?
“Not to work. My boss ain’t Dick Tracy. Probably to a club or a Halloween party. I dunno. It just would be fun to wear, if I can afford it.”
Gianelli’s friends--Lisa Garcia, 19, and Rachel Wolman, 20--also approve of the sultry gowns and agree they would plunk down a fast $100 to create the sizzling look.
“I’d wear any one of those gowns with the fedora. That would look totally cool,” Garcia says.
