Fashion: Turn On, Turn Off

Diana Dew, 23, wears spurs, subsists on brown rice, and has a boy friend called Medulla Oblongata who blows oud for an acid-rock combo known as the Gurus. She is also, as of five months ago, a designer for the far-out Paraphernalia boutique chain. And so quickly do things happen in the mod, mod world of fashion that she has already been hailed as a major innovator, and last week was the hit of the show at Paraphernalia’s Manhattan workshop.

What Diana has done—and nobody thought of doing before—is to make dresses that switch on and off. By using pliable plastic lamps sewn into the clothes in segments and connected to a rechargeable battery pack worn on the hip, just like Batman, she has been able to produce minidresses with throbbing hearts and pulsating belly stars, as well as pants with flashing vertical side seams and horizontal bands that march up and down the legs in luminous sequence. “They’re hyperdelic transsensory experiences,” says Diana. Potentiometers on the battery pack allow the wearer to produce from one to twelve flashes per second. The batteries themselves can be recharged by being plugged in, just like an electric toothbrush, and at full strength are good for five hours of flashing. “If a girl wants to flash for ten hours, she’ll have to get a bigger battery,” says Diana.

She also is busy expanding the Dew line to include wide neckties (“the flashiest ever”), a dress that spells out words, and even one that is wired to play music. There is always the chance, of course, that one of her hyperdelic transsensory minis might break down. No problem. Says Diana: “Please just take it to the nearest radio-TV repair shop.”