Sun Lite for April 7, 2003

Monday, April 7, 2003 | 8:15 a.m.

Fashion prescription

The long, mild winter this is Las Vegas, after all is finally over. Department stores are brimming with the latest styles for spring (have you ever seen so many pairs of Capri pants in one place?).

Time to pack up the parka and bid bye-bye to your long underwear for a long while. Of course, you'll want to take special measures when storing cold-weather gear to ensure it will be ready to wear next season.

Here's Steve Boorstein with the assist. Nicknamed "The Clothing Doctor," he spent 25 years as a clothing buyer and boutique and dry-cleaning business owner before penning "The Ultimate Guide to Shopping & Caring for Clothing: Everything You Need to Know ... From Blue Jeans to Ball Gowns" (2002, Boutique Books LLC, $19.95).

The doc's book is packed with all sorts of clothing-related tips, from treating silk shirts with TLC to making sure your Levis fit just right. When caring for garments, Boorstein reminds:

It's a crime?

Of course, after putting away the winter wear, your closet and the rest of you may look pretty bare. Time to go shopping!

Prepare to spend exactly $1,729 on clothing this year if you're the "average American," author Michelle Lee writes in her book, "Fashion Victim: Our Love-Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping and the Cost of Style" (2003, Broadway Books, $24.95).

As you may have guessed from the title, Lee takes couture pretty seriously. She lumps the frumpy and the chic under the same ghastly "fashion-victim" label because, "We all bow to fashion's power." She shares some insightful (or, depending on your view, downright frightening) fashion factoids.

Lurking in the closets of 75 percent of American men are a pair of Dockers-brand khaki pants. Harmless? Hardly. The sea of slacks are the result of "disturbingly homogenous" fashion trends, which Lee credits to "the proliferation of mass retail chains." Go ahead, blame the Gap for all the world's woes, why don't you.

Size matters to clothing designers and manufacturers, that is. Lee contends both groups "deceive" shoppers especially women with the practice of "vanity sizing." If a label says a dress is size 8, it's likely a size 10 that's been "downsized to stroke customers' egos." Wonder whether the fashion police will be investigating that one.