Bubbles In Baubles

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Baubles that blow bubbles?

Madonna wears one. Tina Turner, Ron Howard and Maria Shriver have them. Larry Hagman uses his on people who smoke. Daytime soap star Kimberly McCullough sports one.

Sterling silver or gold-plated pendants filled with soap-bubble solution - costing $65 to $350 each - are the rage among the glitterati.

Now Providence's Lori-Ann Jewelry Co. is bringing a nonprecious-metal version of the bubble trinkets to the masses - for as little as $8 a pop.

Lori-Ann knows a lucrative fad when it sees one. The costume jewelry manufacturer was one of several that churned out hundreds of thousands of mood rings in the 1970s.

But even Lori-Ann has been blown away by the extent and urgency of the bubble trend.

``I'm in shock,'' says Vito Petrone, president of the company named for his wife. ``We were seven people - struggling. All of the sudden we're 50 people, making money and doing good work.''

Petrone and his partner, Luca Razza, say Lori-Ann has already shipped 700,000 ``gigglers.'' The pendants, trademarked ``Giggles,'' are selling out at such stores as Filene's, Nordstrom, Macy's and Lord & Taylor.

And the market is clamoring for more. On a single day last week Lori-Ann took orders for 400,000 more.

``It's a hot commodity,'' says David Yallouz, president of Gigi Accessories, a Los Angeles distributor. ``The last time I saw something this big was the mood ring.'' Yallouz says he has sold 280,000 of Lori-Ann's gigglers.