The Latest in Chic Is Organized Confusion

“You can’t very well walk out of your house like you’re wearing fashion,” says designer Isaac Mizrahi. “You have to throw it off, and the only way to do it is to make a conscious mistake.”

In other words, to be cool nowadays is to pair stripes with checks. Bright florals with plaids. Crazy color combos. And be slightly tousled to boot.

“If you go to the hairdresser for a new hairdo, before you go out you want to sleep on it,” Mizrahi says. “You have to mess it up.”

In his lower-priced Isaac line, Mizrahi pairs a black-and-white cotton gingham double-breasted jacket, $270, and trousers, $130, with a black-and-white striped boat-neck shirt, $86, in viscose knit.

“It’s designed to look haphazard, not so mixy-matchy,” he says. “There’s a case to be made for things that match. There’s a customer for that. But in its best form, it’s about mixing all these things together. A woman can open her closet and take out a bright pink shirt with an orange jacket and a bright green skirt.”

The mix ranges from mild to wild. At its most exuberant, it’s a 1960s replay with revivals of Emilio Pucci’s psychedelic prints and Lilly Pulitzer’s Palm Beach florals.

For updated haphazard chic, Prada stirs up a yellowy-green, purple and brown floral print shift with checked coat. Gianni Versace and Missoni combine graphic motifs in the extreme. Anna Sui goes post-grunge with a green floral print sleeveless shirt and green-and-purple plaid mini skirt.

Executed with restraint, the look can even take you to the office. Nicole Fischelis, a fashion director for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, says pants with mismatched jackets have been reinterpreted by designers as the “new” suits.

“We do have a lot of that in the collection,” says Ellen Tracy’s chief designer, Linda Allard. “It’s a natural in sportswear houses because that’s what it’s all about--mixing wardrobe pieces.”

Ellen Tracy has a pink silk madras blazer, $395, madras vest, $275, pink silk broadcloth shirt, $185, and watermelon linen jeans, $225.

“It’s not a matched suit,” Allard says. “It’s a mixing of textures and fabrics and colors, with all different shades of pinks and sherbet.”

Todd Oldham’s contribution is an off-the-shoulder rayon knit top in zigzags of red, gold and orange, $395, over a long print hip skirt in polyester chiffon, $220.

Oldham, who has made a career of mismatching, says it’s OK to bend the rules. Within reason.

“If you’re trying to mix patterns, make sure there are two to three colors in common,” he says. “Think of it like a painter’s palette. There have to be a couple of cluster colors to make it come alive.”