There is no denying that current style and music play to a Latin beat. Jennifer Lopez, whose voice and dance movements are both red-hot, has been wooed by Versace, while Ricky Martin, the teen heartthrob with the velvet voice, is dressed by Armani. Other torrid, florid floral prints are computer-enhanced to make them seem the more hothouse and overblown. Jean Paul Gaultier devoted his summer collection to tropical prints in rich, spicy colors for ruffled and fringed outfits. Also in Club Tropicana are jungle-leaf patterns, animal markings mixed with florals and vegetal or fruit prints.
Hats are straw sombreros, big flower-printed mobcaps or just giant artificial flowers.
Baskets are raffia concoctions in vivid colors from Madras checks in overlays of pinks and reds through bold stripes with clashing fabric as a lining. The most significant accessory is the voluptuous body. Not since the supermodel days of Linda Evangelista and company at the end of the 1980s has womanhood been so celebrated on the runways. Let's just call it the wind of change. That blew northerly in the early 1990s, offering pale skinny models, plain and puritan clothes and bringing to the fore designers from Belgium and the Netherlands whose clothes are rooted in simple shapes and natural colors.