Pardon us, we’re remodeling : Californians like change, and we like to think we’re changing the world. But the truth is, the world is changing us.

What is to become of California? Natural disasters, civil unrest, jobs and industries disappearing. Critics say the dream is dead. Spoilsports are moving to Seattle.

Maybe it’s time to hoist a sign over the southern end of the state:

“Pardon us, we’re remodeling.”

It would alert anyone in doubt that California style--the way people dress, what they drive, how they shape their world and live their lives--is under major reconstruction.

Of course, some things remain the same: perfect blondes, sporty convertibles, muscles, movie stars, Malibu. But lately, shifting demographics and the belt-tightening economy have put a twist on time-honored cliches.

Blondes get equal billing with African-American, Latino and Asian beauties who are changing the definition of the term. House guests pull up lawn chairs to the most stylish dining room tables. Families that cling to the Sunday supper ritual spread blankets on the beach and serve fajita pitas or takeout tandoori chicken.

The fact is, shifts in style are nothing new here. Californians like change. It’s a hot commodity, a valued export in such demand that it might very well outdo agri-business as a source of revenue--if only it were taxable.

So, the dream has not been decimated, but it certainly has been redesigned.

Charge your movie tickets by phone, wear a motorcycle helmet that looks like a wig, customize your trash can with flames from a hot-rod kit, get your tattoo removed. These are a few of the latest ways of California that have crossed state lines. And the ideas never seem to stop.

“People who don’t like it here don’t get it,” says novelist Carolyn See, who set her best-selling “Golden Days” in Topanga Canyon. “California culture doesn’t pop up on a computer screen. It’s like the wind. So outsiders say there is nothing here.”

Style may be ephemeral, but visitors still scour the place for things unpredictable. Stuffed, coiled rattlesnakes get plucked from local thrift shops; authentic pottery and wrought-iron candlesticks move briskly out of the Mexican markets; eclectic, ethnic dinners are the favorite names to drop, be they Argentine-Italian or French-Vietnamese.

Often, shoppers find more than just “inspiration” here.

Calvin and Kelly Klein recently carried off an armload of shirts and vests from the trendy American Rag resale shop on La Brea Avenue. The clothes had the same vintage flavor as his first menswear collection last fall. Louis Licari, the New York hair colorist with a Hollywood clientele, opened a Beverly Hills shop last year. Now, when he’s looking for tips on the future of hair fashion, he cruises Melrose Avenue--to check out the saleskids.

Style isn’t only skin deep, of course. Culture watchers from around the world come looking for a preview of what their own neighborhoods will be like--schools, churches, small businesses.

Prof. Robert Ellwood, who teaches a USC course in Eastern religions, takes his students on field trips to Buddhist and Hindu temples, an easy drive from campus. “Southern California is always thought of as a hotbed of religious fermentation,” Ellwood points out. “But now it’s a worldwide urban phenomenon. You see temples in London, Amsterdam and elsewhere.”

Such cultural commingling has thrived here since well before the Gold Rush. By the mid-1800s, American Indians shared the territory with Mexican ranchers, East Coast transplants and a small community of Chinese.

Individuality has always been a newcomer’s calling card. There was Charles Fletcher Lummis, a health nut who walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles to become The Times’ first city editor. An arts advocate, he also founded L.A.’s Southwest Museum.

Career women, not the typical thing in the 1880s, made their mark here early on. Helen Hunt Jackson, a Colorado journalist, came west and wrote “Ramona,” published in 1884. One of the first novels set in Southern California, it’s still performed, pageant style, in Hemet each spring.

USC’s Ellwood believes the state’s experimental image was sealed before the turn of the century. “Anglos settled (in) Los Angeles in the 1890s, when utopianism and spiritual exploration were in vogue,” he notes. In Pasadena, the Arroyo Culture of craftsmen and art appreciators fostered the genteel life in a loosely knit community. In Los Angeles, the Progressives were led by the Rev. Dana Bartlett, a minister and utopianizer dedicated to improving city government.

“It gave people permission to try different lifestyles than where they came from, in New England or the Midwest,” Ellwood explains.

By the 1920s the movie business was briskly fanning other kinds of fantasies--about glamour, wealth and fame. And it did more than any chamber of commerce could to show off the idyllic landscape and weather.

After World War II the first serious step toward engine envy took hold, as cars and freeways became a lifestyle for more and more people.

But some observers maintain that the utopian dream did not flower until the 1950s and ‘60s, when “American Graffiti “ lived .

“Los Angeles was the capital of youth,” says Mike Davis, an urban theorist and author of the “City of Quartz,” a history of Los Angeles.

He recalls “an exceptional spatial freedom for teen-agers.” More practical minds may approve of recent changes, but Davis is sorry to see at least two things go. “Now the beaches are closed at night, and cruising is illegal, everywhere,” he laments. “The glamour of utopia is being extinguished.”

What California is becoming seems far from what it ever was. But in the process, futurists are likely to take fast and furious notes. Whatever lies ahead, the theory holds, is a preview of what other cities can expect.

Clearly the emerging image here tests imagination, in part because it represents a citizenry the likes of which this country has never seen.

Last year alone, 757,278 new residents moved to the state, according to the state Department of Finance. And the cultural roots of the new arrivals are diverse as buds in a victory garden. From Asia alone came 25,000 Filipinos, 21,000 Vietnamese, 11,000 Chinese and 6,000 Koreans.

Latino transplants included 22,000 Mexicans, 7,000 Salvadorans and 5,000 Nicaraguans. (And these figures do not account for undocumented newcomers.) One statistic suggests the scope of immigration: Ninety languages are spoken in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The director of a downtown Los Angeles merchants association sees change through the local clientele.

“Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Cubans. Their numbers are growing on Broadway,” notes Estela Lopez, director of Miracle on Broadway. The customers request spices, fruits and vegetables previously unavailable in the street’s markets.

The city’s director of cultural affairs sees change in the attendance records of a local arts festival. “Sixty-percent of people who now come to the African marketplace are not African-American,” Adolfo Nodel reports, adding that 109 cultural festivals respresenting more than 15 nationalities are scheduled for 1993.

And Yuki, a top Los Angeles hairstylist with a salon in Sunset Boulevard’s Sunset Plaza, sees California’s emerging mix all around him at work. “Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, American, Mexican and French,” he says, ticking off the nationalities of his employees.

Davis envisions changes in culture and style beyond the obvious. He talks about teen-agers from a range of cultural backgrounds rubbing shoulders in the local schools. And he wonders what they will become. “A new Beat generation, or a new Left,” he suspects.

This new generation will, undoubtedly, influence the way we dress. Teen street fashions are Southern California’s free gift to the world. The industrial-strength hip-hop look, with huge denim overalls and janitorial oxfords, jumped from Los Angeles city streets to music videos to the runways. And the gang look, with fall-down jeans and white underwear showing, is the required rap concert dress.

The Gap and Levi Strauss staples are updated at least once a month--with combat boots one week, a Chanel purse the next. At the same time, cheap chic knockoffs of designer styles keep the Southland’s youth culture in fresh date-wear from one weekend to the next.

Swimsuits, of course, remain the area’s first claim to fashion fame. In other places, people actually wear them to swim in. Here, people use them as part of an evening outfit. And recently, so did Paris designer Christian Lacroix, who showed his own one-piece swimsuits topped by beaded, hand-painted ball-gown skirts.

The tendency toward lower prices and higher innovation is a signature of local style. It compares with Paris for creative energy, at about one-fifth the cost. Lately, the same attitude is affecting home decor.

“That New Hollywood, overblown modernist, impersonal, over-decorated look is very dated now,” says Joanne Jaffe, who created Angeles magazine for interior design in 1988. “Largely because of the down-turned economy, it has become a source of shame, not pride.” Now she sees houses filled with “found objects” from flea markets, garage sales and local craft shops.

One new book mapping out this direction is “L.A. Inside Out,” by Paddy Calistro and Betty Goodwin. The houses in it reflect a cultural diversity worthy of a U.N. summit. One canyon home spins Southwest and cowboy furniture off Guatemalan textiles, African masks, Tunisian rugs, Mexican and native California pottery, with a small Pacific Northwest canoe displayed in the window.

Ironically, for all the emphasis on continuous change, some argue that “California style” is anything but new.

“There is really nothing invented or created here,” asserts Thomas Hines, a UCLA professor of history and architecture. “Nothing is solely California.”

California bungalows? “They began in India,” he notes.

Disneyland? “A fantastic re-creation of the past, like Williamsburg, Va. It celebrates copying, of Main Street among others.”

Californians are forever getting teased about some of their flashiest interpretations. “Beach bunnies in BMWs and muscle heads in Porsches,” snipes Joseph Molina, an auto auctioneer and publicist. “But that’s just the stereotype,” he quickly adds. “Now people want cars like Swatch watches. Kind of cartoony.”

The most cartoony of them all, the Mazda Miata, was designed by Pasadena native Bob Hall and won Automobile magazine’s car of the year award in 1989, when it first flashed onto the scene. Mark Jordan, assistant chief designer of the car, compares it to a toy created especiallyfor Southern California. “You can put the top down year-round and there are a lot of windy roads to drive it on.”

Jordan adds: “People here demand to make individual statements.”

With 22 auto-design studios in California, more than any other place in the world, it seems efforts are being made to fill that demand.

“All the domestic companies, and almost all the Japanese, feel they need to keep tabs on the pulse of what is happening in Southern California,” says John Rettie, an auto market analyst and newsletter editor.

Ironically, fewer people buy new cars than did 10 years ago. “People moving here now don’t have the money,” Rettie explains. But it hasn’t put a crimp in their style. Home-customized creations have always captured more attention than any slick manufactured models. Beach buggies, hot rods, low riders, boom boxes on wheels, mini pickups with oversize tires, customized Mustangs and Corvettes have gone racing out of here across the country.

What will those Californians think of next?

It may be the most potent question being asked right now. Some indicators are visible, but the solid image is still taking form. “We are a city of the future, even if we are not sure what that future is,” notes Jeremy Tarcher, who pioneered the self-esteem movement in publishing during California’s consciousness-raising 1960s.

His new publishing interests represent what he sees as the logical next step--books on social justice.

Novelist Carolyn See hears predictions that this region will become a new Alexandria, as in Egypt, a crossroads where innovations flourish, in 20 years.

Mort Janklow, her literary agent as well as that of California blockbuster writers Jackie Collins and Sidney Sheldon, suggests a slower growth.

“The style of any place starts with the people,” he says. “Right now the whole spectrum of California culture is more interesting, primarily because of the recent demographic shifts. Young people from New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, as well as outside the country, are moving there, affecting what is happening.

“California is growing. It’s a teen-ager, growing up. Very nicely, I would say.”