La Dolce Vista

A rule of high fashion has long been: to make a point, exaggerate. This was never more so than last week in Florence and Rome, where Italy's top designers displayed their newest spring and summer fashions. What had been finely chopped shallots in Paris suddenly became whole cloves of garlic. So the little-girl look is in? The Italians turned out their models in white stockings and low-cut boys' shoes. Dresses are above the knee? Why not halfway up the thigh? The bare, bare look is right for the evening? Then loop one-shoulder gowns down to the waist, slash the skirts up to the thigh.

Once such extreme fashion could be worn, as one U.S. buyer put it, "only on top of an elephant in the Barnum & Bailey Circus." Today, with more informal living, chances are excellent that many a young thing this summer will flutter about in wide drapery harem pants, try slinging her hooded Arab cloak over her bead-necklace top and hip-hugging pants. And for those who expect to fall, or be thrown, into a pool, there is' an evening bathing suit with a top that is just a halter of beads.

Star of the shows in both cities was Emilio Pucci, the prince of pants. With print patterns more brilliant than ever, he served up palazzo pajamas, long silk dresses in floral motifs. Princess Irene Galitzine, whose clients include Charlotte Ford Niarchos, showed sarongs and bras for sleeping, a long transparent raincoat and--along with practically everybody else--yards of pants. Much-applauded was her "Margit," a baggy chiffon nightgown-pajama with a low, frilly neck.

The designer to watch was Ken Scott, 41-year-old expatriate Texan who lives in Milan. For strolls by the sea, he suggested a silk T shirt, Bermuda shorts and knee-sock ensemble in a Japanese print. His silk-jersey print dress with a short, short skirt and flowing sleeves had one American fashion writer predicting that it will become "the new status dress."

If Italian designers have their way, women in daytime will regress to the nursery, at nighttime emerge as denizens of a seraglio. Thigh-high beach dresses were decorated with traffic signs, arid hiking costumes were just right for a tramp. Cocktail dresses were turned out looking like high-rise first Communion dresses. Patrick de Barentzen used so many bows in the hair to complement his school smocks and jumpers that fashion viewers thought they were watching the children's wear showing.

For evening wear, Pucci led off the "nudity at night" look with pink silk-jersey Turkish harem pants that left the legs exposed to the hips. Tiziani had his models don jeweled or plain bras that allowed the one-shoulder evening dresses to drape as they pleased. Even that had to yield to Ognibene-Zendman's show-stealing suit: one quick tug at its hidden waistband controls and the skirt's pleats reverse themselves, flop over from blue to green.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.