Blackout : At MTV Video Awards, Black Went Beyond Basic--<i> Way</i> Beyond

At Wednesday’s “MTV Video Music Awards,” television’s annual Olympics of Attitude, displays of sartorial courage were so commonplace that it took a true provocateur to shake things up.

As radio talk-show host Howard Stern appeared, descending on the stage Peter Pan-style from the rafters, jaws in the hipper-than-thou audience actually dropped. The usually verbose Stern, dressed in a $10,000 costume to promote his upcoming film, “Fartman,” said little. His outfit--a gold and copper spandex suit with glowing letters across its padded chest and holes cut out to reveal his rear end--said it all.

Offensive to some, entertaining to others, the costume was a departure for Stern, who’s almost always seen publicly in black--the color of choice for the majority of presenters, performers and fans. Indeed, host Dana Carvey appeared throughout the show in somber black pants, T-shirt and jacket, decorated solely with the politically correct accessory of the decade: a red ribbon indicating support for people with AIDS.

More black arrived on the show’s first presenter, Eddie Murphy, in a chest-baring smoking jacket and slacks. He gave an award to Eric Clapton, also garbed in black save for a few flecks of white in his shirt.

The next two presenters, Shannen Doherty of “Beverly Hills, 90210” and John Corbett of “Northern Exposure,” were similarly decked out in black, as were Magic Johnson, Ice T, U2’s Bono, Annie Lennox, Michael Jackson, Vanessa Williams, the members of Wilson Phillips and others. Even Elton John, once known for his outrageous, colorful stage costumes, chose black shorts for his performance number.

The show’s first color relief arrived when Doherty and Corbett announced the winner of the Best Male Video and Eddie Van Halen bounded onstage in a red jacket, along with Sammy Haggar in a bold, black and white checked suit.

Other standouts in the express-yourself department included:

Ringo Starr (in a multicolored turban and purple jacket), Mick Jagger (black velvet suit with a striking kelly green vest), Cindy Crawford (skin-tight black Gianni Versace evening gown), Bobby Brown (black and white leather jacket and pants, appliqued with abstract art motifs) and Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (in a black and white clown suit).

In the audience, styles fell into four groups: basic black, yuppie office wear (lots of putty-colored suits on men and long, antique-store dresses on women), field-hand separates (straw hats, overalls, sweats) and more extravagant black (lace, chiffon, cotton/Lycra spandex--on both men and women).

Fashion-wise, the MTV Video Awards are known as a place where anything goes--except perhaps a standard-issue tuxedo. Thus, there were audience members dressed as if they were at the beach (volleyball shorts), a luau (Hawaiian-style grass skirts) and the synagogue (yarmulkes). After the show, a crowd of about 6,000, mostly affiliated with the record industry, left UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion and slowly filed into nearby Drake Stadium for a post-show party. As in past years, virtually all the celebrities left to go to their own celebrations or partied among themselves near their trailers.

To get to the official, “MTV University” party, guests entered the stadium through a tent-like tunnel set atop black Astroturf. Inside the stadium, they received maps guiding them to assorted food and beverage locations.

One such site, dubbed the “Campus Coffee House,” was outfitted with a parquet floor, overstuffed furniture, junk store lamps, and even books and trays of cookies on the coffee tables--an appropriate place to discuss and recover from the assault of Fartman.