Well, If It’s Good Enough for Cher and Michelle . . .

Sipping coffee among the Hollywood powerbrokers Wednesday morning at Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, designer Alberta Ferretti considers whether she wants to be as famous as countrymen Giorgio Armani or Gianni Versace.

“Even though you might not be able to tell, I’m actually quite timid,” she says. “Of course, I’d like to see many, many women wearing my clothes.”

Judging from the striking simplicity of her work--which occupies the windows at nearby Neiman Marcus this week--we predict many women will. (Clients include Michelle Pfeiffer and Cher, who called about a dress Tuesday.) But while her exquisitely detailed dresses and new fragrance, Femina, speak for themselves, Ferretti cannot. A translator helps convey her passion for fabric, art, music and imbuing her work with the feeling “of the moment.”

“Women are very similar all over the world today. We work, we need clothes that are comfortable, modern.” Like the simple navy viscose and georgette short-sleeved dress she wears to breakfast. Ferretti, who heads her own company--Aeffe--which also produces and distributes lines by Rifat Ozbek and Franco Moschino, hardly needs a power suit to broadcast her authority. Do any of us?

Oh, Please Make It So: Another TV show about the fashion world may be coming our way. First there was “Models Inc.,” then “Absolutely Fabulous,” now it appears that Roseanne--who’s had her brush with fashion via an on-again, off-again collection that would bear her name--has been bitten by the bug. In a memorable episode of the Howard Stern radio show Wednesday morning, she said: “I want to make a TV show for Sandra (Bernhard). I want to produce a show for her about the fashion world.”

Some unsolicited advice? Take a look at Ann Magnuson’s magazine editor character on the defunct ABC sitcom “Anything but Love.” She was delicious to watch, residing as she did just this side of fashion victimhood. Actually, it’s a neighborhood we’re quite fond of.

We Enjoy Being a Girl: Now that we’re in the fashion catbird seat, so to speak, we’ve been analyzing--some might say over-analyzing--our grooming habits. We re-bleached our roots Friday and had our pores extracted on Saturday, but can someone please tell us how to keep all 10 nails polished for more than 48 hours?

We turned to Georgette Mosbacher’s self-congratulatory how-to tome for trophy wives, “Feminine Force,” in search of nail-care secrets. But the closest Georgie Girl comes to a grooming insight is her confession that a recent haircut didn’t--as she had hoped--make her look younger. Darlings, sans her cascade of cinnamon locks, she looked downright hard!

Next we visited an American-born manicurist. Perhaps we’d bond with someone who didn’t chatter to her co-workers in another language during the tedious ordeal. Perhaps not. “You have such a narrow nail bed,” she observed in a way that indicated this was not a compliment. Then she criticized our choice of polish. “I have to be honest,” she said, heaving a sigh. “I really don’t like it.”

Now, we are toying with the idea that a decayed manicure doesn’t have to signal a decayed character. Then again, maybe it does.

There Can’t Be That Many: Buzz magazine has graciously sneaked us a peek at some of the L.A. chicks and daddy-o’s who made the final cut of the October issue’s “Cool 100 List.” And the winners are . . . Harry Shearer, Mayor Richard Riordan, Albert Brooks. Uh, cool is not how we’d describe these guys. But then, that’s the point of the silly exercise. “Few things get people hotter under the collar faster than arguing about who is, and who is not, cool,” asserts a Buzz press release. Our temperature is soaring already!

High & Low: Chanel has wormed its way into the art world. In an enormous canvas by Keith Haring on view at Westwood’s Armand Hammer Museum, a woman with the familiar interlocking Cs on her chest reclines on a divan. And on Friday, artist LyzaBeth Sallan’s work “Chanel” goes on exhibit at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati.

“I bought my first tube of Chanel lipstick in Paris. I was thirty one.” So begins the “identity journey” that surrounds four 6-foot-by-4-foot self-portraits. The text is written in Chanel’s Star Red lipstick.

Please Pass the Ferragamo: The image of models strolling among tables of lunching ladies conjures up images of the defunct Bullocks Wilshire tea room, filled with finger sandwiches and hats worthy of the Queen Mum. But a modern version of the shop-while-you-chew lives on at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, featuring clothes from its high-fashion neighbors: Ferragamo, Chanel, Hermes and Bottega Veneta.

Beginning this week, the hotel starts its third year of weekly Saturday lunchtime fashion shows, plus one on the last Friday of the month, until Christmas.

New participants this year: Tiffany & Co., Gianfranco Ferre and Alaia Chez Gallay. Escada grabbed the first spot and all the Fridays. “While the models are exiting the dining room,” says Escada’s store manager Jeanne Roderick, “the women are right behind them.”

This quick response is not confined to women. Roderick’s seen many businessmen doing the same--and announcing they want the outfits, head-to-toe, for their wives. Information and reservations: (310) 274-8178.

* Inside Out is published Thursdays.