Function Versus Form : Splashed with wild prints, skin-tight designer jeans are back on the scene.

Men’s designer jeans are back and they’re taking a walk on the wild side. They may be just as snug-fitting as the original indigo versions made by Jordache and Calvin Klein in the early ‘80s. But the latest reincarnations feature everything from boldly painted Op Art and animal prints to tie-dyes--sometimes all on the same pair of pants.

Credit Italian designer Gianni Versace for turning the human body into a painted canvas. He revived the trend three seasons ago, when he introduced a group of boldly colored, wildly printed jeans in his European signature collection. They are priced from $520 to $1,100, and the designer’s Beverly Hills boutique stocks them.

Lately the jeans have been duplicated by dozens of companies at prices that are easier to digest. New York-based Gurilla Biscuit created several versions for $62 at Bullock’s and GHq. Franco Moschino jeans are $150 to $185 at I. Magnin.

But these Versace wanna-bes don’t have black leather patches with gold Medusa insignias that adorn the originals.

Romp, on Melrose Avenue, and Homeworks, in Santa Monica, will offer Charles Goodnight’s $65 plaid-and-animal-print jeans come fall.

“They’re never going to replace the basic blue jean,” adds Seth Baum, designer at Gurilla Biscuit, “but they’re not just a fad.” He says the bright colors make them easier to sell during the summer months.

At L.A.-based GHq, store buyer Todd Cardenas says the printed jeans sold poorly at many malls but are a big hit in the high-fashion Beverly Center. In that store, “We’re just about sold out of them now,” he says.