Cool for a Hot Climate

Overweight in luggage but light of heart, one out of every six American adults will be off this winter for what the brochures have promised will be "a heavenly holiday in the sun." If the adult is a woman, vacation preparation will have involved more than permission from the boss and the credit manager at the bank. Long and tedious hours in big city department stores and teeny suburban specialty shoppes will have gone into assembling the proper holiday wardrobe. And once on the decks of the gleaming cruise ship, out beneath the swaying palms or on the beach under the languishing tropical sun, her clothes will almost surely prove this season's lady traveler the wildest dresser since Eve.

For one thing, resort fashions, though basically no different in purpose or function from regular old summer clothes, have always brought out the exotic impulse in even the most conservative housewife. Raspberry silk, in the dank gloom of December, is somehow a good deal more raspberry and more silky than when seen in the golden context of a June day. But even with the inherent glamour that comes with trekking out in storm boots to buy clothes fit for sea and shore, this year's selection has an added bit of zing of its own.

The Shiny Look. Zingiest of all are the bathing suits. Exhausted by peeling away at the bikini, and prevented by the limits of good taste and state laws from going any farther, sportswear designers have reinstated the one-piece suit. But with a difference. This year it is "the shiny wet look." Fashioned of black materials that are plastic-smooth and neon-bright--vinyl patent, stretch satin, and glistening nylon --the suits look dripping wet before the wearer touches toe to sea, thereby saving her the horror of actually going through with it.

From Bermuda to Barbados and back again to Boca Raton, ladies will wrap pullovers about them to hide the suit that never got wet or to match the short shorts (Bermudas are now for bicycling only) that came with the outfit. They may still have one in jersey left over from last summer but, more likely they will follow the trend to offbeat fabrics ranging all the way from suede to satin. An occasional girl will turn up in a plain old vanilla terry-cloth jacket or playsuit, but most of her fellow travelers will sport the same fabric colored purple, cerise or tangerine. The beach-bound set will wander the islands in shirts that follow the Pucci dictum (find two colors that cannot go along quietly, put them together, and toss in five or six more for accents) and accompanying slacks that are cut as slim as decency permits.

Little Find. For dresses, the traveling lady will go down to the sea in shifts. The southbound version is a little more body-conscious (nipped in just a bit at waist and bosom) than the straight-hanging classic, comes in all lengths--cut short, often above the knees (for the walk from hotel to beach), street-length, well above the street (for the last sunset stroll along the water), or clear to the ground (for the after-dinner dance on ocean liner or hotel veranda).

This year's lady tourist, sure to stun the natives, will just as surely bring back with her the lovely smock, hand-painted in the juice from the biddledee nuts that fell from the trees that shaded her patio. It will be a find found in the little store tucked away at the end of the crooked street. But it may seem less of a find back home. What seems perfection itself in the land of bongo and mango has a disappointing and predictable way of becoming not quite so spectacular once past customs.

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