Shrunken Spring Looks Give New Meaning to Downsizing

This spring, you can drop a size without losing a pound. Just add a pint-size T-shirt, micro-mini kilt, midget midriff sweater and teeny-weeny jacket.

To do this Lilliputian look, buy the smallest pieces you can squeeze into and still look smashing. Consider raiding the boys’ departments for Jockey T-shirts or heading to Gap Kids. Or downsize with Calvin Klein’s white cotton mini tees, $15 in the women’s department at Neiman Marcus and I. Magnin in April.

Size up the situation, and you’ll find that shrunken tops with fitted sleeves are perfect for today’s looser, fluid pants. In other words, opposites attract.

That’s why Isaac Mizrahi pairs tiny white tux shirts with oversized black “Marx Brothers” dinner jackets, or tiny viscose jersey tank tops with billowy taffeta ball skirts.

The gist is to look as if you outgrew your clothes eons ago.

But you’d better possess the youth and wit to pull it off.

“The shrunken silhouettes are very, very trendy, not very practical, and very, very young,” says Allen Schwartz in Los Angeles, founder of ABS. “I don’t really relate to them. They’re almost like wearing a muscle jacket.”

Littler sizes go best with younger ages, says Barry Goldsmith, Burberry’s managing director in New York.

“The market is somebody in her mid- to late-20s or dare I say upward,” Goldsmith says. “Not everyone who wears them should.”

Burberry’s, a 70-year-old company known for conservative plaids, has reprised its wool kilt in signature tan, black, white and red windowpane, $430. Originally introduced in the late 1960s at 28 inches, it’s now available at 15 1/2 inches--the shortest ever--up to 22.

“Most people who buy them are people who know they can wear them,” Goldsmith says. “They’re more your Christy Turlington-type buyer.”

Burberry’s isn’t the only company offering kid-size kilts.

Richard Tyler, designing for Anne Klein, has them in black leather, $555, and multicolored linen, $275, at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. Anna Sui takes a shine to silver leather, $319 for the mini kilt, with matching battle jacket, $484. Sold at Macy’s, Bullock’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Anna Sui boutiques in New York and Los Angeles. Sui also does indigo denim, $140 at I. Magnin.

“The junior customer or the advanced customer who is fashion-forward will want a kilt, anywhere from 18 to 23 inches,” says Hope Brick, fashion director for Foley’s in Houston.

“We will go after that look in juniors. And for back-to-school it’ll be a natural. You add opaque tights or thigh-highs and clunky lug-soled shoes.”

Foley’s plaid kilts in rayon and wool gabardine by junior labels Star City and Tracy Evans are about $44. Both labels will offer short suspender kilts by April, $38 to $52.

Burberry’s mini kilt comes with a matching fitted patch-pocket blazer, a far cry from the oversized boyfriend jacket.

“It’s definitely tailored, meant to fit, more shaped, more flattering, less slouchy, with very thin shoulder pads,” Goldsmith says.

With notch collar, the three-button jacket retails for $655.

Also designed for the small set is the waist-length battle jacket such as Anna Sui’s in silver leather with matching kilt, $484 and $319, respectively at Macy’s, Bullock’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus and Anna Sui’s stores in New York and Los Angeles. Or try a cadet jacket from ABS, in wool gabardine, denim or cotton twill, in sand, ivory, navy and white.

“It’s an Eisenhower jacket that looks good with long skirts or sailor pants,” Schwartz says. “And it’s small enough to work as a jacket and top at the same time. You just button up and you’re off.”

The cadet jacket, about $140 to $300 at Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Bergdorf Goodman and Macy’s.

YES Clothing Company, a Los Angeles-based junior sportswear line, offers Munchkin-size denim jackets in indigo and black, about $35 in April at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Burdine’s, JC Penney and Merry-Go-Round.

“They’re cropped, and there’s no padding in the shoulders, so the whole thing is really scaled down,” says George Randall, head of YES. “The younger girls from 15 to 19 love the crop because they have hard tummies.”

At Foley’s, tiny tops include Tape Measure’s cadet blue short-sleeved crop top in cotton and Lycra, $56; Liz Claiborne’s linen bolero vest striped in mustard, olive and cinnamon, $58; and Adrienne Vittadini’s white cotton ribbed tank, $130.

But don’t overdose on the itsy-bitsy, Brick says.

“Anything really body-conscious does tend to work better on somebody who’s thin,” Brick says, “but it’s important to register this new proportion in dressing with one piece at a time. If you choose a tiny knit top, don’t pair it with a tiny jacket. It’ll look like proportion overkill.”