MICHAEL MORRISON WANTS YOU TO INDULGE YOURSELF

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Michael Morrison is lamppost tall and whiplash lean. He doesn't get up from a chair so much as uncurl, in the manner of one of his renowned belts. A designer of self-styled "indulgence wear" -- jewel-studded clothes and accessories favored by rock musicians and nightlife addicts -- Morrison recently opened his second retail store, his first in South Florida, in South Beach.
The shop is stocked with Morrison's signature cowboy-style belts studded with Austrian crystals and cinched with rhinestone buckles, with a $6,000 black-leather neo-motorcycle jacket whose back and lapels are encrusted with rhinestones, and with baseball caps and catsuits that sprout faux rubies and emeralds the way a mossy forest floor sends up mushrooms.
If all of this leads you to think there's nothing here for the over-35, the attorney, the budget-conscious or the regal at heart, read on.
Morrison has elegantly updated the classic English schoolgirl's dress. He has left the oversized heavy-falling collar but dotted it with tiny silver studs and faux diamonds. The low-slung pleats are still there, the chaste long sleeves and the straight, waistless drop from the shoulders. But the see-through black chiffon he uses in combination with the jeweled collar both softens and satirizes the schoolmarmish effect, rendering the dress ultra-sexy and surprisingly sophisticated.
He has also managed to design some of the most face-flattering, major-statement earrings I've come across. Usually, oversized, jewel-encrusted earrings are, at best, attractive in themselves. The wearer's face, no matter how lovely, plays second fiddle to the baubles. Not so with Morrison's ruby chain, or the grass-green drop in a drop, or the pair of three coruscating globes dotted with multicolored stones. Magically, they light up the wearer.
The shop also carries Morrison's lower-priced line, Fraud. These items are still encrusted with jewels like polka dots, but the jewels are plastic instead of crystal and the fabrics are synthetic rather than natural. The look's there, though, for those who want their clothes and budget, too. Items from the Michael Morrison line generally run from $180 to $900; for Fraud the prices range from $60, say, for a cap, to $196 for a catsuit.
Morrison's razzle dazzle sounds straight out of Hollywood, and it is -- but not without the influences of the Outback and Great Britain. Morrison has been designing in Los Angeles for 10 years; his first -- and only other -- retail store is on Melrose Avenue. But the designer is from Australia, "from Northwest Victoria, an area where green citrus and grapes are grown, kind of like here, really, with huge old gum trees and wrap-around verandas and a style that is resurfacing for more relaxed ways."
As a kid, he says, he was fascinated by clothing, and at 12 he worked at "the hippie shop." It was called Paraphernalia, he remembers wryly, and was the only such store in town. When Morrison left Australia, he went to England and worked in the costume department of the Royal Ballet. Since the troupe toured for 36 to 38 weeks a year, it gave him a chance to see the world. But he also decided "if I had to work that hard, I wanted to do something for myself."
So in 1981, he arrived in New York, in SoHo to be specific, and started picking up strips and straps and the odd scrap of leather thrown out by the few remaining factories inhabiting the erstwhile manufacturing district. He began experimenting with belts. "The New York garment district inspired me," he says.
But Los Angeles attracted him, and he took up residence on the West Coast and "started peddling earrings store to store." From peddling to designing for performers is a long jump, but hard work and skill have propelled more than one designer over the hurdles. Today, Morrison can count among his clients actress Daryl Hannah, rapper LL Cool J, and singers Jody Watley, Liza Minnelli and Gloria Estefan.
"I'm a bit of a collagist," Morrison says. "I may pull a picture out of my head or sometimes I'll think of something silly. Like I'm listening to Nancy Sinatra sing These Boots Are Made for Walkin', and I'll think, 'What doesn't she have?' "
What the designer himself can't have enough of are belts. Which led me to wonder how anyone could be so inspired by what is essentially always the same, a strap and a buckle. Morrison looks bemused. "I like an odd strip of leather," he says with characteristic understatement.
If Morrison revels in designing belts, however, he keeps stretching his interests. His next collection will include more leather, more jackets. "You can throw a jacket over anything," he says.
And if his belts and vests are often bought by men, Morrison protests: "But I don't really make men's clothing. One day I may, but right now I'm still learning about women's clothes."

HOW PREDICTIONS MISSED THE MARK

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SINCE the turn of the century, there have been countless outlandish claims made about how we would live our lives in the third millennium.
 Some predicted doom with the outbreak of worldwide famine. But others believed humans would prosper, with robots doing all the work while we shuttled to the moon and back on private space crafts.
 The famine prediction came to light in 1971, on the BBC programme Horizon. It reported the beliefs of a professor from Stanford University in America that millions would die when global food supplies ran out by 1999.
 British professor Paul Erlich went even further and predicted that mankind had only a one per cent chance of surviving into the next millennium. Others thought that we wouldn't be eating proper food by now at all. In 1966, Tomorrow's World presenter Raymond Baxter said that we would only be swallowing nutrient pills by the 90s.
 Travel was another aspect which was expect to change drastically by the year 2000. Touring the solar system was considered a probability and collapsed airline Pan Am actually advertised hypersonic jets capable of going to the moon. Of course, it didn't become a reality.
 Even the government made some appalling mistakes. In the 60s, the Department of Trade and Industry predicted that every home would have an "Able Mabel" - a robot housewife.
 The experts got it wrong on personal computers, too. They never predicted the huge explosion of interest in PCs or the Internet.
 Incredibly, even IBM's own president once predicted that the total global sales of computers would amount to FIVE.
 Our homes haven't changed in the way experts believed they would, either. In 1964, we were told that we would be living in shining new cities on the Polar ice caps. There was also mention of homes under the sea and, of course, in space.
 Even the renowned architect Sir Hugh Casson had a vision that we would live in white plastic pods with enough space inside to park a hovercraft.
 Incredible claims were also made for the uses of nuclear energy. Robert Ferry of the US Institute of Radiator Manufacturers, for instance, thought every home would be powered by a nuclear reactor.
 On the health front, there was a widespread belief that we would live to be at least 200 by the turn of the century.
 As far back as 1928, one paper predicted that the average person would live to be 150. In fact, the average life expectancy, although it has steadily risen, is still just 76 for men and 80 for women.
 Perhaps the oddest predictions of all, however, were over fashion. Everyone seemed to think that we would be wearing zip-up latex catsuits similar to those worn by Jane Fonda in Barbarella.
 Designer Elizabeth Gibson said: "I thought that by 1999 everyone would look the same and be dressed in all-in-one metallic outfits, looking very futuristic."
 And designer Andrew Groves added: "I grew up with images of white catsuits in my head - like something out of the film 2001."
 Despite all these bizarre and embarrassingly incorrect views of the future, however, we're still at it. Only this week, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke said he believed holidays in space would be big business from 2010.
 Engineers in America are also seeking cash to open a hotel in orbit above the Earth, made out of empty space shuttle tanks welded into a ring.
 For the time being, however, we will just have to wait and see what develops. By now, we should have learned not to believe anything until we see it with our own eyes.

Sleek Martin produces story

MICHELLE MARTIN's historic 9-2 9-2 9-1 victory over Liz Irving in the world open final in Johannesburg attracted less attention from photographers compared to skintight bodysuit in which she posed afterwards. All week the rumours that she might play within the Lycra gear attracted more press as opposed to squash itself.
 Martin could possibly normally wear it, for publicity's sake, had she been permitted to. The circuit's governing body, the Women's International Squash Players' Association, frowns on it. The controversy highlighted the dilemma of so-called minor sports and of ladies within them, in wanting to promote themselves.
 ''I was shocked on the quantity of attention the rumours got,'' Martin said. ''It had have got to the stage where everybody was wanting something from me. I simply had to tell people to disappear completely and that I wouldn't wear it until following your tournament.''
 The hubbub proved the extent of Martin's new-found tunnel vision. She riveted her mind on attacking the ball early and centered on that in lieu of her opponent, the possible outcome, or the bodysuit. Amazingly, it took only around 30 minutes to win the last and go ahead and take title time for Australia the very first time in a decade.
 The Martin household is the first to have produced two world open champions something not really the legendary Khans from Pakistan have managed. Her elder brother Rodney was champion in 1991.
 Hers would have been a memorable performance, made a lot more so by the transformation in their appearance from that relating to a well-upholstered and slightly ponderous competitor to at least one of the extremely eye-catchingly slim and quick in regards to the court. Her whole posture looks different. Same goes with the sort of attention she's getting.
 ''It's hard to say perhaps the bodysuit will be the optimal way to visit,'' she said. ''I feel confident enough to wear it, however it could degrade other people. I can appreciate how people reason over it.''
 Many of the women abhor it as a form of exploitation. England's Martine Le Moignan attracted similar censure when she posed in French cami-knickers for the top of the page of a magazine after becoming world champion in 1989.
 The WISPA says the bodysuit may be the wrong image, and insists that skirts or dresses have to be worn, not shorts, as the solution to promote the women's game.
 It fined Martin Pounds 50 for wearing the bodysuit in Melbourne last month and sent a warning letter that she risked further fines or perhaps a ban if she wore it again. Her manager, Phil Hart, nevertheless sought permission on her to make use of it in Johannesburg. But he now has an exotic player to promote but not simply a latex stockings.
 Martin has won the two World and British Opens without dropping a game title. She will quickly happen to be World No1 for the year and, since last year's retirement of the latest Zealander Susan Devoy, who had previously been No1 in excess of eight years, she has been transforming herself by using her uncle turned coach.
 Lionel Robberds can be a diminutive, sleek-haired, half-smiling genie of a lawyer who looks as though he has somehow found the trick of Eastern promise. With him, Martin still, at 26, includes a opportunity to create a name that transcends the sport.
 It was Devoy who said that Cassie Jackman, the English national champion, could possibly be the main one to achieve success her. Though the younger, British brigade is a huge disaster out here.
 Specifically, Jackman's loss to Sabine Schoene, the very first German to succeed in a global semi-final, was probably the most disappointing of her career and will initiate a total rethink of what she is doing and why. The gap between her and Martin has widened alarmingly.
 Two world squash championships in quick succession in Johannesburg since South Africa was re-admitted by the International Olympic Committee have brought general celebration and signs of change.
 The game's governing body in South Africa has a non-white chairman and, incredibly, amid the depressing tin huts and dust of Soweto, a stone squash court exists. The game that came from Harrow has reached the oppressed.