The Big A

He still refers to longtime customers deferentially, by their last names. Mrs.

Onassis. Mrs. Paley. The Duchess of Windsor. They would not know his own surname--Sardifia --from a sign of the Zodiac or a veal sauce. By his first name there is no mistaking Designer Adolfo, currently the big A of fashion.

The midi-dress and the maxicoat, harem pants and bolero jackets--all are credited to Adolfo. His lace and or gandy blouses, gingham dirndl skirts and big-brimmed straw hats have turned teeny-boppers into minor Elvira Madigans. This spring it was the patchwork look--on full-length skirts and matching shawls--that put new life into quilting bees and earned for Adolfo a Coty Award. Last week he presented his fall collection: jeweled vests with fringe to the floor, blown-up fur berets and scarves, including everyday kerchiefs, monogrammed boas and a nine-foot muffler of patchwork mink.

Mad Hatter. Adolfo started at the top, with hats. Now 36, the Cuban-born designer came to the U.S. 17 years ago after a short-lived apprenticeship ("picking up pins" is how he describes it) with Paris Couturier Balenciaga. He checked into a job in the millinery department of Manhattan's Bergdorf Goodman. Six months later he checked out of Bergdorf's and into the hat firm Emme as chief designer. But eight years of turning out nothing but millinery designs left him a grumpy, if not downright mad hatter; he accepted $10,000 in cash from Seventh Avenue Designer Bill Blass and set up his own business in 1962. "Closeted in someone else's house was painful," he says. "Today I am my own boss and I do not have to account to anyone else."

The Adolfo salon proved such an instant success that Blass was repaid in full in less than a year, and Adolfo settled down to a clientele so devoted, he had almost no need to advertise. Word of mouth, from the right mouths, was enough. "My customers are my public relations," he says. "I don't call them. They call me." It might be Manhattan Socialite Mrs. Joseph A. Meehan, who once dashed in, Adolfo remembers, needing "something amusing to wear to a Mideastern party in Southampton. We put our heads together and came up with harem pants." Or Philadelphia grande dame Mrs. T. Charlton Henry, in search of something to jog in. Adolfo produced a one-piece, black knit jump suit.

Open Membership. Heiress and Artist Gloria Vanderbilt Cooper enthusiastically endorses Adolfo's notion of dressing in accessories by putting together what she calls "bits and pieces." She provides the bits, Adolfo the pieces. It was Gloria Cooper who caught on early to the patchwork craze, scoured antique shops for rare quilts, and had Adolfo whip up a basic wardrobe of 14 evening skirts for her, "It's kind of spooky--like osmosis," she says of the relationship, "the way we think alike about color and fabric." And, as if that were not enough, Mrs. Cooper adds, "There is so much pleasure and so much fun in spending less."

Adolfo's prices, though higher than ready-made clothes, are considerably lower than couturier fashions. A maxicoat can be had for $325, a blouse for $90. And though Adolfo is fond of calling his salon a club and his regular clients members, he confesses that "Membership in the club is never filled. People who come here simply because they feel it's the thing to do" however, need not apply. "This type of person," Adolfo says, "is immature and indecisive."

Fortunately, there are Adolfo boutiques in 15 Saks Fifth Avenue stores across the country, where indecision can still be served.

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