Chicom Chic

They drive back and forth between the Roosevelt Hotel and the United Nations, a clump of austere functionaries clad in sober blue tunics, baggy matching trousers and caps straight out of a '20s movie. Style setters for the Beautiful People? Who would believe it? Yet so it seems. Chairman Mao's favorite jacket in particular--and just about anything else Chinese--is selling in Manhattan boutiques this fall like rice cakes at the Spring Festival.

The new Nixon look in American foreign policy is basically responsible. Sensing a trend, a pretty young thing called Veronika Yhap put aside her work as a hospital planner and became a Dragon Lady--one of four, in fact, who banded together under that name to import Chinese-manufactured clothing and handicraft. Born in Shanghai but educated in the U.S., Veronika found a host of potential buyers around Manhattan shops after she showed clothes from her own wardrobe. "The response was fantastic." she says, "and we were in business before we knew it."

Padded Tunic. She and her friends hired a pattern cutter to snip out standard American sizes and sent the results off to China, where the clothes were manufactured. Their bestseller is the classic Mao jacket, padded slightly for warmth, with a removable (and washable) white inner collar and buttons concealing snap closings. It retails for $33 (with matching trousers, it is called the jen-min chuang, or people's suit). The Dragon Ladies also offer other styles right out of Terry and the Pirates--a bright red medallion-print pantsuit at $70 and a long coat with slits up both sides, called a chi pao, at $120.

The creations of other American China watchers are not quite so authentic. Designer Donald Brooks takes elements of classic Chinese styles, such as mandarin collars, flowing sleeves, frog closings and lush prints, and incorporates them into his high-fashion line. Characteristic is a simple dress in red with a white swirl print, banded and sashed in black with a mandarin collar and frog details, which sells for $315. Mrs. Richard Nixon has been observed trying on a few Chinese-styled Brooks dresses, leading to the presumption that she will wear them if she goes to Peking with the President. Brooks says no: "She's just modeling them for a magazine."

Other New York designers have gone Chinese as well, although most of the designer-created lines will not hit the national market until next year. At Bonwit Teller, however, the flashy, far-out ideas of Giorgio di Sant'Angelo are on display now. His basic looks include a dolman-sleeved, high-waisted body suit, with a loose, short-sleeved long robe that goes over it. "I think this will replace the poncho," he says. "In winter, the Chinese sometimes wear six of these robes--the layered look is really very Chinese."

Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta, Stan Herman and Kasper have also gazed East. Says Herman: "I like the Chinese look because I'm for the whole political factor. If it's going to bring everyone closer together, I'll show everyone what the Chinese look like."

Opaline Orange. Chinoiserie is finding a place beyond the clothing industry. Revlon is going Oriental. Lipsticks are called China Glaze, Opaline Orange and Bamboo Bronze, for instance, and a forthcoming across-the-board cosmetic line is billed as "the China Silk Face." The hosiery people are producing pantyhose with Chinese coolies running up the sides, a new line of decorator fabrics is called the Colors of China (warm tones such as terra cotta, wisteria, fawn and plum), and there is a host of Chinese food products. Some now come from China itself, including bean curd, bamboo shoots, lotus roots and dried lily flowers.

Here and there, especially in the Midwest, inquiries about Chinese-made goods are greeted with suspicion or surprise; the vogue has not yet appeared there. In the East, though, anything Chinese seems to have a new cachet. At Bloomingdale's in Manhattan, for instance, a new China Passage boutique is doing a roaring business in simple, handmade Chinese items such as a 500 backscratcher, a $12 coolie hat and a $6 cricket cage. The latter will do just beautifully for New York cockroaches.

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