Put-Ons, Take-Offs and Dress-Ups

"W hen I was a little girl," recalls Sonia Rykiel, "my mother always used to tell me, 'Keep your knees together like a lady!' She was always saying, 'Don't do this or that!' " Sonia, who today is a top Pa risian designer of ready-to-wear fashion, no longer has to worry about Maman's comments. But in the French fashion industry's showings of spring clothes last week, some of her new numbers did not seem cal culated to endear her to too many other women -- though they should cause countless male eyes to go into orbit and may well tie up traffic wherever -- or if -- they are worn. The most spectacular clothes Rykiel exhibited feature necklines that do not plunge: they go over the brink, leaving the bosom bare, out there, in the air.

Rykiel, "my mother always used to tell me, 'Keep your knees together like a lady!' She was always saying, 'Don't do this or that!' " Sonia, who today is a top Parisian designer of ready-to-wear fashion, no longer has to worry about Maman's comments. But in the French fashion industry's showings of spring clothes last week, some of her new numbers did not seem calculated to endear her to too many other women --though they should cause countless male eyes to go into orbit and may well tie up traffic wherever--or if --they are worn. The most spectacular clothes Rykiel exhibited feature necklines that do not plunge: they go over the brink, leaving the bosom bare, out there, in the air.

Though her topless tricots were the sensation of the show, most of Rykiel's line did not rely on shock value but on the fact that her clothes were imaginative, brilliantly colored and practical. She is the most womanly of designers, who recognizes that "every woman must create her own ambience; it is not I or Yves St. Laurent but the woman who has to create herself and be a unique person." She adds: "I make my clothes for real, living women of our times--not movie stars --who have to be with children, and men, and go to lunches, receptions, bistros, dinners at Maxim's and business meetings and are always ready to travel." She does not, obviously, intend to dine at Maxim's or board the Concorde bare-bosomed, but those far-out styles are doubtless intended to emphasize her view that clothes should on occasion be "laconic, humorous and seductive." They are also elegantly trimmed and fringed.

In any event, red-haired Rykiel, long regarded by fellow designers as one of the most inventive and attainable of dressmakers (her outfits sell for around $500), may with this collection be on her way to international recognition as a philosopher of clothes who is both liberated and intensely feminine.

Kenzo Takada also scored a major breakthrough with his new collection. One of the originators of the Mao-now, peasant-chic look several years back, Japanese-born Kenzo, 38, has moved out of the Orient with clothes that suggest rollicking pirates (some of his models even wore black eyepatch-es), swashbuckling naval officers, and the Indians of the Raj, decked out in white duck and Nehru caps. Kenzo also displayed some opulent evening wear, notably a blue gown that exposed the model's left breast. (Who needs jewelry?) His fabrics--including linens and striped cottons--are more refined, and his colors eclectically electric.

The great Pierre Cardin, who has lent his designing ways, or at least his imprimatur, to just about every wearable, digestible, drinkable--and disposable --product from chocolates to chaise longues, may be spreading his talents too thin. His August haute couture show in Lyons was a disappointment, and so was his new ready-to-wear collection. A notable exception: a classic, black, cowled, translucent sweater.

The Reggie Jackson of Paris was Yves St. Laurent, who once again batted homers all the way to Bloomingdale's, Benders and Bergdorf s. But it was a markedly different Yves. Said he: "I have found a new form of simplicity." Turning his back on Cossacks and gypsies, he drew his inspiration from "the streets of New York." One YSL eyecatcher: a tricolored cotton shirt worn with sailcloth pants. His ready-to-wear clothes were modern, young and--with one or two see-through and derriere-baring exceptions--eminently wearable on Manhattan's avenues. That--if not his prices ($500 or more) --will doubtless bring Yves new acceptance as a guru turned pragmatist. -

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