Fads, Fashion and Foolery for 1994

BEAUTY OF A CAR RACE: The annual Polish Journalists Car Rally, for 20 years an excuse for male reporters and editors to screech through mountain passes and cobblestone streets, is expanding this year for the first time to include a women’s race.

And all eyes are on the early favorite: Ewa Wachowicz, a 23-year-old beauty queen who recently began doubling as press secretary to Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak.

The reigning “Student Miss Universe” and former “Miss Poland,” Wachowicz has taken her share of ridicule since joining the new prime minister’s inner circle. She acknowledges knowing little about politics, and she must still fulfill her beauty title obligations--including numerous public appearances--while serving as press secretary.

A mocking Polish press corps quickly concocted a fictional government information telephone number composed of Wachowicz’s measurements expressed in centimeters.

But the green-eyed farmer’s daughter may get the last laugh.

A sports enthusiast, Wachowicz has mastered jogging, skiing and gliding--and, most important, is said to be an accomplished amateur driver. She is expected to enter the eight-part journalists’ elimination rally, beginning in February, with her new Opel Astra.

“She may just win it,” predicted a confidant Przemyslaw Osuchowski, a former newspaper reporter who recently quit his job to become Wachowicz’s assistant.