You have to love a store that carries high-end stuff like St. John Knits and Stuart Weitzman shoes -- and gives a portion of each sale to charitable causes such as breast cancer research and the House of Ruth.

The store is Vasarri, and it opened recently at 1636 Reisterstown Road in Pikesville. In addition to clothes with high-recognition labels ranging from Easel to Steve Fabrikant, Vasarri carries smart shoes and handbags, some gift items and even a few pieces of antique-reproduction furniture.

Upstairs is for custom evening ensembles by Vicki Soble. Even though I have no occasion to dress for evening, I just had to admire a pants outfit with an up-to-the-minute scallop-hem jacket, and then stoke the fires of wishful thinking still further by stroking a sweet chinchilla shrug that hung nearby. (The label called it a wrap; I guess when an item is made of chinchilla you can't quite call it a shrug.)

Despite the presence of chinchilla, the salespeople were friendly and helpful. Also appealing was the number of high-style but large-size shoes out on display. I love it when fashion retailers aren't afraid to recognize that not everybody is an ideal size, whether above or below the knee.

A sporting sensibility

Fashion always maintains multiple personalities, though at any given time one may dominate the others.

Thus, for the past few years, the tendency to dark, spare clothes ruled, and impulses toward flamboyance, color and romance were kept in the closet. But now they've burst out -- onto magazine pages showing spring's luscious color, girly frocks, hippie glam and Oriental ornamentation.

This doesn't mean, though, that minimalism is gone. Instead, it co-exists with all that other stuff, but in a slightly different form. It's evolved into clothes with those same slim minimalist lines, but now with a strong sportswear look instead of its former urban affect.

These duds appear as obsessively functional as gear for hiking and extreme sports -- from which they borrow not only a sensibility but also an emphasis on high-tech, high-performance materials. That's why a recent Ralph Lauren ad focused on the sole of an athletic shoe -- designer treads to go with your designer threads.

But you don't need to go to Ralph or REI for the look: It's alive and well at the mall. The popular fashion shoe brand Candie's, for example, has come out with a neoprene "Street Surfer" sandal (shown here). Like similar sandals in the couture lines, Candie's version (at Hecht's and Macy's for $40-$45) shows a heavy debt to serious sports sandals from the likes of Teva and Merrell.

Then there is Nautica's excursion into sunglasses. Nautica was making techno-sportswear well before it hit the fashion runways, and now they've got the shades ($130-$180) to go with the clothes. The high-tech hook here is that these are polarized, unlike many fashion-branded sunglasses. They will be available at Sunglass Huts and some optical stores in this area.

Taking it off

Putting on makeup can be fun, but taking it off is a bore. But now it can be a bore of shorter duration: New on the removal scene are towelettes that promise to wipe all kinds of gunk off your face without your even having to rinse afterward.

Versions by Pond's and Biore both promise to be easily available at mass-market outlets in this area. Biore facial cleansing cloths come 34 to a box for $6.99. Pond's Cleansing and Make-Up Remover Towelettes come 30 to a box for $4.99. Both prices are suggested retail.

Another option is the reusable Make-up Remover Cloth by Wonder Cloth. This is used wet, with or without soap, to remove makeup, and the cloth itself is supposed to rinse clean afterward with just water. The Remover Cloth is available at Cosmetic Centers for $9.99.

Pub Date: 03/07/99