COUNTER REVOLUTIONARIES : O.C. women favor conservative, but colorful looks. Response to fall trends has been mixed.

Get thee to a nunnery--that’s the fashion statement behind the aptly named monastic look that puts women in austere dresses that resemble nun’s habits.

Depending on the trend, a woman can also look like a doe-eyed waif in a long, shapeless dress, a street urchin in baggy “grunge” wear or an Edwardian dandy in a fuss of velvet and ruffles.

How many women have actually followed the calling of designers and bought into these radical fall styles? Now that these clothes have made it to the stores, fashion designers and manufacturers are discovering which styles made the successful transition from the runways to the wardrobes of real people.

In Orange County, where women tend to favor conservative but colorful looks, response to the fall styles has been mixed.

“The waif look--ugh,” says Lisa Bantle, a 27-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita resident shopping on her lunch break at South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa. A banker, Bantle has no use for flowy dresses, ruffled blouses or bell-bottoms.

“I like conservative clothes. I don’t like the ‘60s stuff,” she says. “I prefer form-fitting clothes that are tailored to the body.” Case in point: the tailored navy coat dress with white trim she wore to work that day.

Yet among some fashion followers, especially those in their teens and early 20s, who didn’t wear bell-bottoms and poet blouses the first time around, the new looks are a welcome change.

“I think the waif look is cute,” says Lisa Molnar, a 21-year-old Yorba Linda resident, sporting jeans, a loose grunge shirt and Doc Marten look-alikes, her long straight hair parted down the center in the style of the ‘70s. “Before, the voluptuous look was in. This is different. It’s fun.”

To please their Orange County customers, local retailers have had to pick and choose their way carefully among the new looks.

In this land of sunshine, some clothing buyers bucked the style forecasts and avoided the season’s palette of muted earth tones and shapeless silhouettes.

Linda Bentley, owner of the Linda Bentley boutique in Fashion Island Newport Beach, purposely showed bright clothes with fitted, feminine silhouettes at the recent Center of Fashion show for the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The response was enthusiastic.

“We had tons of calls from people saying they really hated the dark, dingy-looking clothes being shown (by some of the other stores), but they loved our segment,” Bentley says. “They couldn’t picture themselves in the other clothes. Most women still want feminine, sexy looks.”

She put her models in body-conscious evening wear and fitted suits, some trimmed with fur and featuring narrow, slitted skirts. While taupe, olive and brown shades have been deemed the colors of the moment, she chose clothes in purple, orange and other vivid hues.

“The California woman likes bright, novel clothes,” Bentley says. “We’ve stayed in touch with what actual people are wearing.

“There’s a client for all fashion looks, but in Orange County (radical styles such as the waif look) are not being accepted that well,” she says. “The proof will come at Christmas. I’ve got to believe there’s going to be a lot of stuff on sale.”

Styles that have been a hit here are individual items that can be easily adapted to pre-existing wardrobes, say retailers. Many women have pulled the ruffled poet’s blouse from the Edwardian look because it can work with a suit for day or flowy pants or skirts for night. Poet blouses are hot sellers at B. Magness in Newport Beach.

“That’s as much as we’ve touched on the Edwardian look,” says Barbara Magness, store owner. “These other looks--I don’t think they’re for Newport Beach. I mean, combat boots? They’re the ugliest shoes I’ve seen in my life. I don’t see those things here, but in L.A. they go like crazy.”

While combat boots, oversized shirts, baggy pants and other grunge looks might move on Melrose, they’re a harder sell in Orange County.

“The grunge look isn’t going anywhere,” says Glenda Heitz, district manager of Cache in the Brea Mall and South Coast Plaza. “You have an educated consumer who understands her image. For youth, it’s fun, but for us baby boomers, we’ve been there, done that.”

Instead, her customers favor romantic Renaissance looks.

“Anything with ruffles, vests in brocades and velvets, blazers with velvet trims and wide-legged pants are getting a good reaction,” Heitz says.

Of all the trends to come out of Paris, Milan and New York, locals say the Edwardian look has been one of the season’s successes.

“What I think is going over is the romantic Edwardian blouses worn with long vests and the fuller pants in the softer fabrications,” says Colleen Espinosa, buyer for Mykonos in Newport Beach.

As far as the monastic look goes, “I don’t see it coming in the door at all, and the waif look isn’t my customer.”

Why does Orange County ignore trends that take off in nearby Los Angeles?

“People here are more interested in what makes them look good rather than being a fashion victim,” Espinosa says.

“We still like color in Orange County. Colors sell very well. In Los Angeles, it’s ‘What shade of black are you going to buy?’ Here, if we carry something in burgundy, red or royal blue, it sells. The browns don’t sell as fast.

“We’re in this bright, sunny area, and that makes people think differently. They like things that are fun, bright and happy instead of severe or dark. There isn’t any place quite like where we live.”

Retailers See Reality, Not Radicalism

For fall, fashion designers gambled on several radical new looks: the austere monastic, street-inspired grunge and ruffled Edwardian. But retailers who say they’re in touch with what baby boomers in Orange County are wearing know there are winners and losers among these progressive styles.

Among the season’s hits and misses:

Misses

Nuns habits that pass for high fashion under the guise of “the monastic look.”

Muddy colors (bland browns and icky olives).

The “grunge” look--sloppy clothes that look like they came from a thrift store but cost much, much more.

Shapeless silhouettes.

Hits

Evening wear that still acknowledges (and flatters) the female form.

Vivid hues such as rich burgundy, royal blue and purple (Orange County is far less enamored of black than are L.A. and the East Coast).

Romantic looks--brocade vests, wide-legged pants and the ruffled poet’s blouse--a runaway success this season.

Skirts that hit at the knee or above it or fall almost to the ankles--never at mid-calf.