Soul on Seventh Avenue

New York City's garment district had never seen anything like Willi Smith's fall fashion show. Put together for a Seventh Avenue firm called Digits, Smith's fall line-up eschewed traditional blues, browns and grays in favor of the baby pinks, brilliant yellows and other bright pastels usually reserved for spring. To top off the show, Smith's 19-year-old sister Doris diddy-bopped out in a 1972 bridal outfit: a strapless white Lurex gown worn with a white fake-fur jacket and a gauzy veil with a feather stuck in the side.

In the following weeks the accolades came rolling in: a Coty fashion-award nomination, new accounts for Digits and praise from the trade press. Only a few years ago, probably none of it would have happened at all. Willi Smith is black, and until recently the fashion business has had little room for designers of his color.

There was always plenty of work for black people in the garment center, almost all of it menial. But black designers were rare--and might still be had not the garment district been in economic doldrums for the past few years. To recapture the interest of hip young customers, the moguls of the apparel industry have been turning to younger designers, both black and white--and, some blacks say, ripping off the flamboyant styles that have long been part of ghetto life. Says Susan Taylor, black fashion editor of Essence magazine: "I could swear that the white folks on Seventh Avenue have been taking tours up in Harlem to see what people are wearing, then taking it back and mass producing it."

To Smith, that makes perfectly good sense. In clothing, as in "most other cultural things in this country, the originality has come from black people," he maintains. "The stores are just getting hip to the black girl, but it's not like she didn't exist before. She's always been fashionable. She's freer in what she puts together." For all that, Smith, a Philadelphian who attended Parsons School of Design, works with "healthy bodies" --not necessarily black ones--in mind. His trademark is pants, full in the legs, high and tight in the waist and hips.

Since Smith's clothes are in the medium price range, he outsells the other black designers, gifted though they may be. Among them:

STEPHEN BURROWS. At 28, Burrows is considered by many of his peers the most creative designer--black or white --working today. Three years ago, he initiated a fashion trend that is still going strong: brilliantly colored, close-fitting dresses and pants put together like mosaics from patches of fabric or leather. He has also created popular body-hugging jersey dresses with rippling hems of uneven length. A native of Newark, Burrows attended the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, then took a job decorating department store windows. Switching to Manhattan's avant-garde O Boutique, he began designing and was soon hired as house stylist for Henri Bendel, an exclusive store on 57th Street. Burrows says his clothes "make both the wearer and the viewer aware of the body and its potential." This year that means "lots of sweaters and little skirts and cardigan jackets. They're all very clean and simple."

SCOTT BARRIE. Forget being a designer, Barrie's mother once advised him. "You ought to find a job." But Barrie stuck with it, attending the Philadelphia Museum College of Art and working as a photographer's assistant and pattern cutter. Today, at 28, he is co-owner (with a white partner) of Barrie Sport Ltd. His clinging, bare-backed jersey gowns, splashy-patterned chiffon suits and pleated dresses that cling at the waist but billow in the sleeves are sold in some 150 stores. They are also worn by stars such as Ali MacGraw, Lena Home and Diahann Carroll, as well as the cast of television's Laugh-In.

RUFUS BARKLEY. At 23, Barkley is the youngest--and most conventional--of the big-name black designers. Born in Harlem, he graduated from the Parsons School of Design two years ago, went to work as assistant to Couturier Oscar de la Renta. This year he produced his first fall collection (for Traina Boutique and Sport), still under the influence of de la Renta's classic style. Among his designs: a checked suit in green, red, yellow and beige worn over a green jersey shirt, and a georgette jacket in pink-and-marigold print to go with a black tank top and long black skirt.

There are other imaginative young designers who cater to a strictly black clientele. But the big-name black designers must appeal to a much larger, predominantly white market. That alone might reduce the "black" content of their work, but some of the designers also seem to have a psychic aversion to being labeled. "My dresses are not ethnic," says Barrie. "They are clothes for everyone." Burrows is even more emphatic: "It's not in my mind that I'm black or white," he says. "I just don't think about it."

Willi Smith disagrees: "It's important for black people to know that I'm black." He has been criticized, he says, "because I'm not uptown cutting dashikis. But I'm in this business to take my people somewhere. I want black girls to have the experience of being in a fabulous environment all their own. They work hard, and I want to produce beautiful things for them."

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