Columnist Muriel Stevens: Spring is busting out all over

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004 | 9:16 a.m.

Muriel Stevens' dining column appears Fridays. Her shopping and travel columns appear Wednesday. Reach her at (702) 259-4080 or muriel@lasvegassun.com.

It's said that fashion is influenced by the economy of the country, that hems rise and fall with the market. Color, too, is influenced by economics; dark hues for dark times, rampant color when the economy thrives.

If the historians of fashion are right, the future is bright.

Right now shopping and style magazines such as Lucky are bursting with information about getting into the spring fashion groove.

Brilliant pink, yellow, blue, green and orange colors can be found in products ranging from linens to lamps to nail polish. Makeup is more natural looking; the Theda Bara look is only for those too young to know better.

Ethereal pastels traced with delicate prints adorn bold females (Madonna comes to mind) who, when clad in such ladylike attire, partake of afternoon tea rather than lunch.

There are no limits. Anything goes -- and goes and goes.

Fornarina's at Mandalay Place: Newly opened Fornarina's has the formula for success -- "trend-setting designs and women's fashions and accessories with heavy emphasis on the latest shoe wear."

With locations in Rome, Moscow, Berlin, Stockholm and Los Angeles, it was a given that Fornarina's would open a flagship store in Las Vegas. Trend-setting, too, is the design of this new genre concept store, created by noted architect Giorgio Borruso.

Forarina's is the newest high-style fashion feast at Mandalay Place. Already in place are GF Ferre, Max & Co. and Musette, and there's more to come.

Mandalay Place has its own valet parking and is on the sky bridge between Mandalay Bay and Luxor resorts. Mandalay Place hours are 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 10 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays.

The big shoe-in: Shoe collectors are wild about the wide array of footwear available for spring. Here, too, anything goes -- pointy shoes that squeeze your toes, ballet slippers for comfort and ease, stiletto heels so gorgeous on gams, ablaze with color.

Tod's in the Forum Shops at Caesars has a terrific selection of shoes in the new colors -- with handbags to match.

Slim, low heels on some of Tod's dressy sandals have almost as much sex appeal as the ones worn by the "Sex and the City" babes. Stilettos are available in a wide range of prices.

Check the stability of the heel on any stiletto. Manolo (he started the stiletto craze) is now bracing the heels on his shoes to make them less precarious.

Kitchen fashions: KitchenAid is offering a tangerine-colored, extra-wide toaster ($89.99); Just-Rite makes a manual citrus juicer that looks like an orange, has a leaf-green base and an orange body ($28); Zyliss Comfort Food Chopper has a raspberry-colored bottom and spring top and a white body ($20.99); while a hot-pink, yellow and orange set of four nesting Melamin mixing bowls with no-slip rubber bottoms is $55.

My favorite colorful small appliance is the Francis Francis hot-pink espresso maker designed for small spaces ($400). Look for these colorful kitchen aids in kitchenware shops -- Sur La Table in Desert Passage and Williams-Sonoma in the Fashion Show mall.