The Journal News from White Plains, New York • Page 43

Sscilcn Television 2 Cryptoquote 4 Movie Clock 5 Comics 6 Page 10C Living Editor Ellen Hale: 694-5070 Gannett NewspapersFriday, Decembers, 1997 JN Fashion finally does justice to African influences Natalie Portman as Anne Frank, center, and the cast of "The Diary of Anne 7 Pranlr" a ho Miieix Rnv Thau fo "I Lawrence Steele, Patrick Robinson or Ozwald Boateng young talents who are lucky enough to be working in the industry spotlight and under their own names. Their clothes might best be described as sporty, luxurious, classic. While their work might hint at their ethnicity, it is not rooted in it. Instead, black chic is a convergence of influences: the traditional dress of Africa, the pastiche style in multicultural communities, the point of view of blacks By Robin Givhan The Washington Post It has almost always seemed that no one could get it right. In 1993, Italian design duo Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce, working under the Complice label, tried to create a collection that celebrated the style of the African diaspora.

The results were fuzzy fake Afros, Tower Records shopping bags, low-riding pants, the colors of black nationalism and a host of black models hired just for WKESWI to wA- imstxvsuir TWWJIMATS vtimm clothes FASHION HEATS working behind the scenes or in the shadows of the fashion industry. But black chic isn't about the color of the person who is doing the sketching or buying the fabric. "Black people don't all design Afrocentric stuff," says Jelani Bandele, founder of a company that represents the occasion. It was an exuberant effort to pay tribute to diversity in an industry that often projects indifference. But it also was a collection burdened by stereotypes and miscalculations: The program notes, for instance, referred to Scarlett O'Hara's Mammy as one of the many UP KCEHIl Model Alek Wek on the cover of the November issue of Elle.

6 mm ri(e mm r- ii.i.uiiiiiiiMiwuH.iiiuMPijunnpLM i. iiwmn I if S' several designers, some of them black. Attention-grabbing designers like John Galliano, Dries Van Noten and Ralph Lauren have embraced a black aesthetic. Galliano employed traditional Masai style in his spring-summer couture collection for Christian Dior. Most prominently, he showed face-framing, filigree necklaces modeled after original Masai adornments.

This year Lauren, inspired by the colors, textures and jewelry favored by the Masai, introduced a subtle collection of knit dresses and sand-colored suits with African influences. At the Paris spring '98 ready-to-wear collections shown in October, Galliano, designing for Dior, gave his models Ndebele-style giraffe chokers. For his signature collection, the inspiration was black film star Dorothy Dandridge. And Van Noten offered a multilay-ered ethnic mix of patterns and textiles shown to the percussion of Burundi drummers. "Africa and African politics are in fashion," says Mil Niepold, one of the founders of Please see BLACK CHIC, 9C emblems of black pride.

Going ethnic, in the fashion industry, has rarely been a pretty sight. But that aesthetic is changing at least for now. What was once embarrassing, insensitive or merely ignorant has evolved. The result is black chic. This year, there has been a more sophisticated and resonant exploration of African diaspora influences.

The effects can be seen in business suits and stilettos as well as flowing robes and sandals. On the runways, a generation of black mannequins is ready to follow Naomi Campbell. To be sure, the business has a long way to go before it is a model of diversity. But it seems we are in a season of positive change. "This time, the culture is being talked about," says Susan Taylor, editor of Essence.

"More and more people in the industry are talking about the history, the exquis-iteness of African women and men." Black chic is not necessarily a style espoused by breakthrough black designers like 'V, 0 Staff photoMichael DeChillo Actress Linda Lavin in her dressing room at The Music Box Theater, and as Petronella Van Daan, below. JACOBSON Actress embraces a difficult role Tense, powerful revival puts the Holocaust center stage By Jacques le Sourd Staff Writer The heartbeat is so subtle that you think for a moment it might be your own. It comes near the end of the first act of "The Diary of Anne Frank," at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway. An invisible noose of terror has just tightened once more around the little circle of eight German Jews hiding in a REV I El building in Amsterdam in 1942. A loud crash from somewhere downstairs has interrupted their Hanukkah song.

There is the sound of footsteps up the stairs to the refuge. A dog barks in the distance. Someone outside is rattling the bookcase that conceals the door to the "secret annex," the fateful hiding place of Anne Frank, her family and four others. It is a moment of excruciating tension, orchestrated by director James Lapine, who throughout this intelligent and moving production paints layer upon layer of information. That faint heartbeat (supplied by sound designer Dan Moses Schreier) brings you close, so close to the fear of the characters that you feel you are in the annex with them.

A few moments later, as the fear subsides for one more night of fitful sleep on the edge of doom, Lapine very slowly brings up the house lights and dims the lights onstage for intermission. Suddenly, the characters have disappeared, but you are left with a palpable sense of their disquiet. The audience's reaction, to be replicated even more painfully at the end of the play, is at first a stunned silence. But this powerful revival of "The Diary of Anne Frank," which opened last night at Broadway's Music Box Theatre, delivers much more than well-timed suspense or elegant stagecraft. It represents a complete rethinking of the well-intentioned but somewhat homogenized melodrama by the late Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (with behind-the-scenes doctoring by Lillian Hell-man), that first opened on Broadway in 1955.

Please see 'ANNE, '3C fx if 1 i ir i. WWU ttfAT Vlrw By Jacques le Sourd Staff Writer As Petronella Van Daan, in the revival of "The Diary of Anne Frank," actress Linda Lavin wears a jaunty period hat and a short, honey-colored mink coat with the wide shoulders in fashion in the 1940's. The fur coat is Mrs. Van Daan's most treasured possession, a gift from her father, bestowed long before the world turned against her. Now this elegant woman is in hiding with her husband and the Frank family, in an attic in Amsterdam, as the shadow of the Holocaust darkens the skies of Europe.

The inevitable moment arrives when Mrs. Van Daan must relinquish her precious coat. It is a brief scene, scarcely a few lines. But to watch Lavin play it is to see the drama jell in a single small tragedy. It is as if Mrs.

Van Daan were losing her last layer of skin. The coat scene, like so much else in the play, is a portent of worse things to come. At the end, when the Nazis take her away, Lavin's expression is a silent scream, a violent mask of death that may stay in your mind's eye longer than any other image in James Lapine's carefully shaded production. Indeed Lavin, who won a best-actress Tony Award in 1987 for her role as the mother in Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound," is virtually Please see LAVIN, 3C i--" id 1 I 11 Give the gift of a MoMA membership. The benefits last all year: unlimited free admission to the world's finest museum of modern art; savings in the Museum's stores and restaurants; tickets and discounts to film and video screenings; inspiring talks, lectures, concerts, and behind-the-scenes visits; invitations to exhibition openings and receptions.

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