A Designer With Class--Literally

He hasn’t officially moved to Los Angeles yet, but fashion designer Jeremy Scott is already making inroads into the creative community here. Next week, the Paris-based designer will begin working with the senior fashion design class at Otis College of Art & Design.

The Missouri-born designer and his idol, Bob Mackie, will team up to mentor the 2002 senior fashion design class. Scott and Mackie will visit the college intermittently this semester to critique about 15 seniors each as they develop an evening wear item or theatrical costume for a final project. On Thursday, Scott faxed his assignment to the college. He will ask his seniors to design evening wear that a time traveler could wear to two different parties held simultaneously in two different decades.

“Go extreme,” he urged in the fax. “Maybe Marie Antoinette has invited you to a party the same time as Madonna.” Scott and Mackie are participating in an ongoing critics program that Rosemary Brantley, chairwoman of the Otis School of Fashion Design, started in 1980.

Scott has been in and out of Los Angeles the last few weeks in preparation for his move here by the end of the year. Earlier his month, he taped a week of “Wheel of Fortune” segments here.

After finishing the tapings, Scott, who has worked in Paris for the last six years, stayed long enough to attend the Jared Gold show during Los Angeles Fashion Week.

Scott said he was thrilled to have dressed “Wheel of Fortune” letter-turner Vanna White in his fall 2001 collection, which was an homage to her and the show. The producers approached Scott about dressing the star hostess for a week in an attempt to update the show’s image. White wore a dollar-bill-print dress that substituted Scott’s face for a president’s, a pair of denim jeans and other edgy looks. The game show episodes are set to air from Dec. 31 to Jan. 4

Though Scott’s brand of avant-garde clothing is sometimes too wild even for the fashion press, the designer said his experience with the game-show team was great. “They really got it,” he said.

Scott declined to present a runway collection in Paris this fall, in part because of his impending move and his belief that the season would be poorly attended by stores and press. Still, he scored a story in November’s Jalouse magazine. While he plans to live and design in Los Angeles, Scott said he’s heading to New York for the runways.

‘I Don’t Feel Quite

Right Being Excessive’

“I really do think that just as the 1950s didn’t end until Kennedy’s assassination, and that the 1960s ended--at least for Americans--with Watergate, we are now living in a dramatically altered world. It laid to rest the 1990s and the last century, and we don’t know what will happen. It could put fashion in an absolute moment of absurdity, like the 18th century, with pockets of fashion that seem almost insane. It has also affected me personally. I feel a little more guilty. I don’t feel quite right being excessive.”

--Tom Ford in Paris, quoted this week in the International Herald Tribune on the effects of Sept. 11 on fashion.

Never Mind Skin Tone,

Red Is Your Color

Coco Chanel’s signature red, Rouge Coromendel, had a tinge of orange; Dorian Leigh’s Fire and Ice was more of a scarlet. Like the little black dress, red lipstick never goes out of style. Unfortunately, finding the perfect shade can be a lifelong chore.

Red lipstick is sexy and sophisticated, but it’s also intimidating, according to movie makeup artist Julie Hewett. After spending countless hours mixing different shades for the wartime pouts of Kate Beckinsale and the other nurses in “Pearl Harbor,” Hewett was inspired to create her own lipstick line.

“Some women have a tough time finding the right shade to match their skin tone and hair color. Others are convinced they simply can’t wear red,” she said.

Her collection makes things easier, with five different shades--”one for every woman no matter her complexion, age or style,” Hewett said. Lipsticks $18. Visit juliehewett.net or call (800) 761-NOIR.