FASHIONS Color your wardrobe with brighter choices

Pink and yellow are the popular colors in feminine florals and sheer fabrics.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Summer is here, and there's simply no place for drab raincoats or gloomy sweaters. The season has bloomed with fashions that are flirty, fun and unapologetically girly.
"It really is possibly the most uplifting collection of clothes coming into stores in years," said Hal Rubenstein, fashion features director of In Style magazine. "The clothes themselves are happy and cheerful. There's a certain kind of optimism in the clothes, with a huge emphasis on being pretty."
So, when was the last time you tried on something pink? Or kelly green? Citrus, even?
Color is key
Now is the time.
"Pink is still really huge," said Kathy Schultz, Seattle-based regional reporter for Lucky magazine. "The thing I like about it is that there's a shade for everyone. I've seen it in clothes to handbags to jewelry ... even in the linings of handbags."
Carrie Bradshaw would delight in the sheer girliness of summer 2004: Floaty fabrics. Ruffled skirts. Sequined sandals. Feminine florals. And color, color, color.
"I love citrus color for summer. I love charmeuse dresses for summer. I think people should experiment and try on something that they don't normally wear," Rubenstein said. "Wear color. Don't try to disappear, because if you can do that, what did you gain by going out?"
Even in typically gray Seattle, retailers are showing hopeful signs of summer. Seattle's newly opened Peridot is awash in color, from pale yellow skirts to ruffly floral tops to wooden clogs embellished with rhinestones and pink roses.
"Yellow and pink are the two hottest colors," said Tweety Bui, co-owner of the boutique. "(Customers) like the big florals, white skirts with yellow flowers and white with pink flowers. That seems to be doing really well."
Peridot carries its own private label as well as trendy brands including Free People, French Connection and Chinese Laundry, as well as denim by the hip (and celeb-friendly) Blujeanious.
Accessories are important
Bui and partners Minh Nguyen and Nhung Mach also sell handmade sterling silver jewelry decorated with semi-precious stones.
"Chandelier earrings are still very big," Bui said. "We've been selling so many of those. We've been making them every day."
At Seattle's Carmilia's, shoppers are snapping up colorful silk flower pins -- very "Sex and the City" (albeit season three) -- and attaching them to bright pink or baby blue cropped denim jackets. Also a big seller: flirty terry-cloth tube dresses by Juicy Couture, as seen on Sarah Jessica Parker and Kate Hudson.
"Last year, pink was so popular, and it was a softer pink," said owner Linda Sabee. "This year, it's a bright kelly green and bright pink and bright turquoise. It's not subtle at all. It seems like it's really kind of punchy."
"I think last (summer), there was more of a utilitarian look, with the cargo pants and cargo skirts and lots of pockets," said Schultz, the Lucky magazine reporter. "This year, it's more of an 'I'm gonna be a girl' look. ... It's demure, but more flirty."
That doesn't mean you have to be age 12 to pull it off. Summer abounds with options to flatter a womanly figure, from full skirts and lightweight fabrics to shapely dresses.
"There's more movement to the clothes. It allows women of different body types to achieve a certain look," said Rubenstein, the In Style editor. "To say, 'I can't wear this' or 'I won't wear that' is copping out. You're being a chicken."