FUTURE FASHION: HOMOGENIZED SPACEWEAR?

The Intelligentsia Futurist Network predicts that people will be donning spacewear to go out in public in the next millennium. Middle school students from England, the U.S. and Japan working on a joint project about the future of fashion think global communications will decrease the diversity of what people wear, homogenizing fashion.

Meanwhile, Nike already is working on an intelligent athletic shoe that's supposed to help prevent sprained ankles.

The Nike shoe is supposed to respond with firmness when the wearer's ankle buckles. Another Nike shoe being developed would transmit data about speed and distance from a microchip implanted in the shoe to a watch that would provide the runner with a readout. Reebok claims to have a similar shoe in development and ready to go by 2001.

Some fashion prognosticators who live closer to home are less extravagant in their forecasts.

Rodney Bridges, owner of Garber's Mens Wear, got into the business in 1972, when some men were wearing leather fringe vests and Jesus sandals and others were in leisure suits.

He predicts polyester still will be found in men's closets in the future, though he says, "We don't use the P-word anymore."

Now the term is microfibers.

Designers are using plastics, acrylic and rubber," Bridges said. "It's really looking futuristic."

Ties could disappear "sometime down the road," he imagines. "I won't be here and my grandkids won't be here."

He would like to see people in the next millennium return to having more respect for their clothing. "Maybe it would trickle down to everything else," he said.

"... I'd like to see society dress up more, particularly in this area. We're the first to bring anything a little off the wall to Cape and we have people who want off-the-wall."

He thinks the current trend is toward casual dressing. "Everybody has jumped on the casual Friday look," he says.

That doesn't mean people still won't be buying suits, he says. Right now his store is filled with suits ranging from one- to five-button styles. "We have a wonderful suit business."

But there is such a thing as too much casualness, he says.

"When would you have thought people would run around town in sweat pants and sweat shirts?"

Fashion is a reflection of what's going on in society, Bridges says. "When people dress sloppy it shows they have no pride and no respect. I seriously think it's a reflection of a lack of respect in society."

Judy Wilferth, owner of the clothing stores Sandy's, Children's Bazaar and Boys' Corner, shares Bridges' hope that people start dressing better in the next millennium.

Dressing nice enables a person to perform better, she says. "Some of the dressing that is sloppy causes people to behave more slovenly."

She thinks people need a personal dress code, a code for their family and their children, and a code for school and business.

She thinks the evolution from women wearing what designers dictate to wearing what they want will continue in the next millennium. "There's everything out there today," she said. "Women set their own style... I don't see them giving that right or feeling up."

Fashion represents individuality, she says. "It's how each individual perceives himself to look the best. Any one season you can find many different looks."

Comfort, she thinks, will be the watchword in the future, with fabrics being developed that are more comfortable and easier to care for.

And there's one fabric you can count on being in the future, she says: Denim. "It's Old Faithful. It was good in 1900."

At the beginning of the 20th century, no one could have foretold that pierced tongues and thong bikinis would become fashion statements. "But the mainstream is still going to go for things that work for their lifestyle," Wilferth says