Lifestyle More Relaxed in Once-Strict Iran : Mideast: After 12 years of revolution and war, new, liberal attitudes are sweeping the nation.

The strains of modern music wafted to the street on a recent evening and guests at a lively party here boogied until 2 a.m. Gathered were members of Tehran’s middle class, whose very attendance at a party--where a homemade raisin vodka, keshmesh, and wine were served--bespoke the new, liberalized mood infusing Iranian cities.

“People like to enjoy themselves again, after 12 years of revolution and eight years of war (with Iraq),” one guest observed. “They want to talk about ordinary things--the cost of living, their children, where they are going to spend their summer holidays. Though times are still tough, things are getting better and people are much more relaxed about themselves and the regime.”

Indeed, the revolutionary komitehs , the officials who supervised public and private morals, are less to be seen around town.

An ambassador reports that at a noisy farewell party here, neighbors down the street called to alert the host that a komiteh team was lurking in sight, and the party shut down for an hour until the coast was clear.

On the streets of Tehran, the change in lifestyles is striking: Many middle-class women wear colors, where not long ago, like Henry Ford’s Model T, the only available color was black.

Many of the women in north Tehran have shucked the chador, the simple, black, full-length veil, for a garment called the hejab, which is like a long raincoat. It suitably covers the body but allows latitude for individual expression with epaulets, buttons, a black drape, cut sleeves and cuffs, even semi-revealing slits in the back. Under the hejab , women wear elegant shoes, while their daughters don rolled Hermes scarves and carry Louis Vuitton handbags.

At parties, a few men are bold enough to wear neckties again, which were considered to be forbidden by revolutionary authorities because they were considered tahootie-- that is, they were the mark of a corrupt, rich upper class.

Social observers judge the degree of liberalization by the amount of forehead that women show in public under their scarves: At the height of the Iranian revolution, the chadors covered women, forehead to eyebrows; that threshold gradually was raised, so that now, the more sophisticated show a bit of forelock.

“Iranians still have money, but they don’t have much to spend it on--so that’s why clothes and fashion are still so important here among the middle class,” said a longtime resident of the capital. “All the women in north Tehran are up on the latest fashion magazines from Paris.”

In spring, even the battered capital--which has mushroomed from a population of 4 million in 1980 to a staggering 12 million today--seems almost habitable, with the breeze sweeping from the northern Alborz Mountains, the pale sun warm but not yet oppressive and the rushing water in the open drains, called jubes , gurgling through the shade trees lining the main boulevards.

Young couples now walk hand-in-hand in city parks without harassment by the komiteh vice squads, Tehranis say. “It’s no longer a sin,” one resident said.

In addition to the sight of the occasional young romantics, one of the more common sights, now that the annual Islamic holy month of Ramadan has passed, is the gridlock of traffic in Tehran. These are so commonplace, one wonders how the city would cope--if and when prosperity returns.

Prosperity for this nation of 55 million, diplomatic and other observers believe, is the goal of President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has emerged as Iran’s strongest leader since the death of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

“Rafsanjani is a pragmatist,” one businessman said. “He is trying to give the private sector a much greater role and take away many large factory complexes from the government. He doesn’t want the government to be that much involved in the economy because, since the revolution, the government has lost money at this.”

“The key to Rafsanjani’s future is the development of the economy,” a Western diplomat said. “Iran made windfall profits on oil sales last fall, but the price has jumped again.

“The country needs massive reconstruction from the damage caused by the eight-year war (with Iraq). But Rafsanjani has to develop investor confidence, and that’s why he has embarked on his program of economic and political liberalization.”

But another diplomatic analyst cautioned: “Rafsanjani has to play a very careful game--liberalizing the country and the economy step-by-step, so that he doesn’t get the radicals ganging up against him at once.”