The Good-Humor Man : Todd Oldham <i> Can</i> Be Serious--Serious About Designing Fun, Cheerful (Some Say <i> Quirky</i> ) Clothes

“I love it,” shrieks Ricki Lake, preening before a full-length mirror in a simple, tailored black pantsuit. “So, what do you think? Does my butt look big?”

“You look great,” soothes designer Todd Oldham, who is getting Lake ready for the “Daytime Emmy Awards.” He nips in the waistline an inch and piles the talk-show host’s hair up in a sexy tumble of curls festooned with colorful rhinestone barrettes.

“What we don’t want is to do some heap of beads like all the soap opera ladies wear,” he coaches. “Because the suit is so elegant, you can go for it with the hair. I want them to look at you.”

An understated black suit is hardly what we’ve come to associate with Oldham, whose witty, sexy, tongue-in-chic designs (“va-va-va-voom outfits that stop a room,” observes boutique owner Madeleine Gallay) have made him one of Seventh Avenue’s hippest and hottest designers.

Among the bevy of stars who prefer his jolts of color to a boring sea of taupe and beige are Susan Sarandon, Rosie O’Donnell, Queen Latifah and Janet Jackson. Never mind that Oldham’s clients tend to land on Mr. Blackwell’s “Worst Dressed List.” “Oh, please,” the 32-year-old designer says, grinning. “No one takes that seriously.”

Sarandon even made the tabloids scream when she made a public appearance several years ago in an Oldham creation--a loud, clingy cleavage-baring gown. The words Would You Be Caught Dead in This Outfit? accompanied her picture. Undaunted, the actress ordered a batch of Oldhams for the press tour touting her new film, “The Client,” and brought chum Julia Roberts to the designer’s recent fall show.

“Todd is more a 20th-Century artist than a designer,” Gallay declares.

One of her customers purchased Oldham’s $3,600 hand-beaded skirt with the Mona Lisa embroidered on one side and a Picasso portrait on the other, wore it once and converted it into throw pillows.

Although the razzmatazz gowns costing anywhere from $600 to $10,000 generate the most buzz, Oldham also designs understated, scrupulously fitted pieces. Ask him to name favorite items in his fall collection and he mentions the Ultrasuede and pin-striped pieces. “It was fun working with conservative stuff,” he says.

“In the past, most of what he did were well-made novelty pieces, but now he’s doing more basics--basics with his own special twist,” says Joan Kaner, senior vice president and fashion director for Neiman Marcus. “It’s helping him establish a good, solid base of customers who are building wardrobes, not just buying items.”

Even so, some people find his brand of clothing too wacky.

“Real-life wearability can sometimes be a problem with Todd,” says a New York retail consultant who requested anonymity. “I mean, where does he expect you to wear some of these clothes? And if you’re not 6 feet, with a body like Elle MacPherson, forget it.”

Oldham agrees: “Our clothes aren’t for everybody. Most people don’t have the occasion to wear such extreme things. But people who have surreal lives, which most celebrities do to some extent, can wear my stuff.”

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A few days after Lake’s fitting, Oldham is nestled on a marigold silk sofa, a patchwork pillow on his lap, in the corner of the SoHo loft that serves as his showroom. The walls are papered with a decoupage of pink-tinted newspaper. Red and orange ombre velvet curtains divide a large space scattered with racks of wildly colored clothes and rows of fanciful shoes and boots.

If the showroom looks nothing like the sleek, mirrored ateliers that line Seventh Avenue, neither does Oldham look like a typical fashion world darling.

Instead of the de rigueur white T, he sports a faded plaid cowboy shirt bought from his favorite purveyor, Goodwill Industries. A few of his bare toes, peeking out from sandals, are decorated with tattoo rings. Another piece of tattoo jewelry encircles his ankle. A thatch of sandy hair and boyish face with a crooked grin call to mind the teen-agers from “American Graffiti.”

Speaking in a soft, unhurried cadence that hints at his Texas roots, Oldham talks of “not losing focus,” particularly of the fact that today’s clothes become tomorrow’s dust rags. From most any other designer, such self-effacement would smack of pretentiousness. But not from Oldham, whom even industry cynics describe as sincere and sweet.

“Nobody needs me to make anything,” he says. “I’m very serious about my commitment to what I do, but I don’t lose focus about its importance. I make cheerful clothes that hopefully will allow someone to express herself or just have fun, but that’s really it.

“We have customers who come back to us over and over because they like our sensibility and relate to it,” he adds. “But if you buy something because there’s security in the label, I’m sure a thousand bucks in therapy would probably do you better than a new black suit.”

Ask Oldham to describe his clothes and he quickly says, “luxurious,” “goofy” and “comfortable.” Ask him to describe himself and he looks perplexed.

“I don’t spend much time thinking about myself,” he says. “I’m not a worrier. What’s the point? And I’m not competitive in the slightest.”

He’s also a strict vegetarian who doesn’t smoke or drink and would rather spend an evening at home with his dogs, Mike and Betty, than at some wingding with Calvin and Kelly. The things Oldham says he likes most about the fashion business are the “technical stuff,” such as developing his own prints and beadings, and putting together his semiannual shows.

“The show is the only pure representation of my vision,” Oldham says. “We look at the show as one big party. I’m happy we attract celebrities, but we also invite street kids and moms and children and drag queens.”

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His show in April was one of the New York fashion week’s hottest tickets. Swarms of paparazzi and groupies converged on a tent pitched behind the 42nd Street library to catch a glimpse of Sarandon (who brought her 9-year-old daughter, Eva), Roberts, Ellen Barkin, Rita Wilson, Taylor Dayne and Jaye Davidson.

Before Stephanie Seymour, Naomi Campbell and transvestite model Billy Beyond sashayed onto the runway, they gathered backstage with Oldham and the other models for a pre-show rite of burning white sage. “It’s a neutralizer that helps clear the air and causes you to focus,” the designer explains.

Although Oldham insists that he’s not ambitious, his workload suggests he must be telling a little white lie.

In addition to his eponymous collection, he also designs Times 7, a line of shirts and sportswear; a shoe collection; home sewing patterns for Vogue, and buttons. Last fall, he exhibited his oil paintings, including gold-leaf portraits of animals, at a SoHo gallery.

In 1992, Oldham joined supermodel Cindy Crawford’s “House of Style” on MTV as host of “Todd Time,” a segment that offers offbeat tips on everything from updating a wardrobe on $1.98 to buying a swimsuit.

“It’s pretty great, all the opportunities that have come my way, but I could also be really happy on a turnip farm,” Oldham says.

The oldest of four children, Oldham was born in Corpus Christi, Tex., to a close-knit, peripatetic family who traveled around the country and to Iran before returning to the Lone Star state in 1978. His grandmother taught him to sew when he was 9, and by age 14 he had made his sister a dress out of op art-printed pillowcases.

The day after high school graduation (“I loathed school and wished I had quit in ninth grade,” he declares), Oldham went to Dallas, where he landed a job in the alterations department of a Polo/Ralph Lauren boutique.

“They fired me, but I’m eternally grateful for what I learned there,” says Oldham, whose counterculture attitude (hair dyed pink) no doubt ruffled the Lauren crowd. “To be able to take apart Ralph Lauren’s clothes and put them back together was all I needed to know about this industry.”

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In 1981, he borrowed $100 from his parents, bought 40 yards of cotton jersey and created the first tiny collection that he sold to Neiman Marcus. Seven years later, Oldham and Tony Longoria, who the designer calls “my partner in business and life,” moved to New York and started a line called Times 7. Oldham later entered into an agreement with Onward Kashiyama, a Japanese financing firm, to sell and distribute Times 7 and start up a signature line.

Today, Onward Kashiyama remains involved with Times 7, but the rest of Oldham’s business is family owned and operated. Mother Linda runs the Dallas factory, grandmother Millie oversees quality control, sister Robin heads customer relations, brother Brad manufactures belt buckles and buttons, and Longoria oversees sales and public relations.

Oldham declines to discuss finances, except to say that he has 70 employees and sells to more than 200 stores worldwide. (An industry analyst puts the company in the $5 million to $10 million range.) He describes his company as free-form with “everyone doing a little bit of everything.”

Oldham says he usually sketches designs each morning while watching reruns of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” “I just have to hear the theme song and it puts me in a trance,” he says.

Although he plans to launch a fragrance next year and open two stores--a SoHo boutique in September and a Los Angeles shop next spring (the location is undecided, but definitely not in Beverly Hills, he says)--Oldham says he has no desire to build a fashion empire.

“I don’t think I’ve decided yet that I want to be a designer,” he says. “I like it, but I look at everything I do as a project.”

Oldham confesses that he is eager to branch out into films. He designed some costumes for Alfre Woodard in Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn” and has been asked to whip up some outrageous creations for “To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar,” a comedy about drag queens trekking cross-country starring Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze. He recently directed a “Todd Time” segment and will spend part of his summer vacation directing Billy Beyond in a music video.

“Right now, I’m happy to work on these short projects, but ultimately I want to be involved with feature films. I think I’d make a good director,” Oldham says. “I’m not wishy-washy. I definitely know what I want.”