The Great Tyler Trafficante Jam

‘I wouldn’t wear this,” said Sunset, a curly-haired blonde sporting a brown pin-striped suit with exaggerated lapels and bell-bottoms. “You have to be pretty secure to wear this.”

Another model in a Bob’s Big Boy-style hairpiece was equally perplexed by the aqua and red harlequin-pattern zip jacket and red tights she wore down the runway.

“I don’t really understand it,” she said. “But I guess it’s kind of cute . . . for the right person.”

It’s true, Los Angeles designer Richard Tyler’s new spring collections for men and women, shown last week inside his jam-packed boutique, Tyler Trafficante, are not for everyone.

With prices ranging from $320 for four-ply silk shorts to $2,500 for harlequin-pattern blazers, how could they be?

But to the performers who wear his clothes on stage and the other super-hip-and-happening customers who “collect” pieces, the lines are irresistibly creative and innovative.

Bold rugby stripes (pieced together rather than printed) on slacks and grosgrain-ribbon trim on form-fitting blazers suggested a subtle nautical feel.

Woven multicolored pin-stripes on wide-legged trousers and bell-shaped jackets rang with a nostalgic, Fred Astaire quality.

New styling details also set this presentation apart from its predecessors. Men’s double-breasted jackets were high cut and featured a smaller shoulder. Wide lapels and bell-bottoms or stovepipe-legged trousers were also standard fare.

In women’s wear, softly constructed day suits were updated in bold, bright colors--aqua, red, sunflower--and featured bar tacks in contrasting colors on seams.

Richard Tyler may not yet possess the international clout of a Franco Moschino or a Jean-Paul Gaultier, but his design sensibilities are clearly on a similar level.

And he remains the West Coast’s most prolific designer of structurally elegant--if not always wearable--clothing.