Hot Stuff For Summer

BIRKENSTOCKS. Whoopi Goldberg wears them. So do New York designers Marc Jacobs and Randolph Duke, and the nation's first teenager, Chelsea Clinton. Long the butt of jokes for their homely, health-food-store looks, Birkenstocks are back in style. Fashion magazines dress waif models in Birkenstocks and grungewear and at New York's chic Bergdorf Goodman, a limited edition of gold kid leather Birkenstocks studded with rhinestones were recently selling for $300 a pair. Standard Birkenstocks cost less - about $59 to $80 - and come in a lot more colors and styles than they did 25 years ago when an enterprising, comfort-minded California woman started importing them from Germany, where they are still manufactured by the Birkenstock family.

Still, like white bucks and blue blazers, some styles are timeless. Bestsellers are the two-strap "Arizona" style and the more enclosed "Zurich," which anyone who owned a pair in the 1970s will instantly recognize as heir to the original gold suede "Franciscan" model.

Melanie Grimes, who founded and with her husband owns and operates the three Seattle-area M.J. Feet Birkenstock stores, sees a happy irony in the latest Birkenstock fad. A 42-year-old one-time health-food-store waitress, college dropout and naturopathic medicine student - in other words, a prototypical early Birkenstock convert - says that during the prestige-conscious Reagan years, many of her customers kept their Birkenstock habit in the closet: "They'd wear them to drive to work then change shoes before they got out of the car."

Now she says, hip teenagers who wear the shoes for comfort AND style are her fastest-growing clientele: "They wear them everywhere, especially the more avant-garde among them."

WATCHES. The 1990s are supposed to be about getting back to the basics and avoiding the conspicuous consumption of the '80s - like $1,000 designer watches. Perhaps that's one reason why Timex, longtime maker of practical, inexpensive timepieces, is suddenly chic. Not only does President Clinton wear a $40 Timex (the digital Ironman Triathalon model) but Timex has come up with a glow-in-the-dark analog face that is so popular that stores can't keep them stocked.

For those with a taste for retro style, vintage watches from the '30s and '40s are all the rage. Vintage and some jewelry shops are selling 60-year-old Hamiltons, Elgins, Walthams and Gruens for $150 to several times that much. Paula Levine, an owner of Rudy's Vintage Clothing, a First Avenue shop that specializes in vintage timepieces, says collectors have been snapping up vintage watches. "I think it's the romance and elegance that attracts people," she said.

Oblong-shaped "tank" watches from the '30s and '40s are among the most coveted, she said. The one on this page is a 17-jewel, 1940s Hamilton from Rudy's, for $350. It works and comes with a warranty.

JEWELRY. In costume jewelry, a big trend is what the industry calls "heavy metal," a lot of chunky silver jewelry that looks like spare parts from a motorcycle engine. Silver-toned jewelry (more anti-establishment than gold, which is the age-old symbol of lucre) is what is sold at boutiques catering to the young fashion crowd, though older fashion mavens also seek it out. Big silver crosses, especially on long heavy chains, are unexplainably trendy. On this page is a pendant by Groovy Designs, $36, at Fast Forward on First Avenue. Middle-Eastern and African-inspired jewelry is also in, and is worn by the pound with ethnic-flavored tunics and harem pant ensembles.

SUNGLASSES. Round-lensed sunglasses will be everywhere this summer. But for those who don't want the John Lennon look, there are fashionable alternatives. Take cat eyes. The chic lens shape suggests early 1960s glamour, French movie stars on the Riviera and windswept rides in small sports cars. The pair shown on this page is by Riviera for Anne Klein II, and costs about $22. Black frames, as always, are in style this summer, though sunglasses manufacturers report that brown-toned tortoise shell frames are selling unusually well.

HATS. When Leone Ewoldt sold them in the '70s from a stall at the Pike Place Market, she called them halibut caps for the halibut fishermen who once considered white caps a part of their informal uniform. These days, fashion magazines refer to them as newsboy caps (after the style worn by youthful newspaper hawkers in the '30s and '40s), Jimmy Hoffa hats or Big Apple caps, a reference to the style favored by New York blue-collar workers in the first decades of this century.

Made with snappy bills and enough fabric to give them an insoucient pouf, the caps have a rakish appeal, one reason they were popular with the swinging Carnaby Street fashions of London in the '60s and early '70s.

At We Hats, the Pioneer Square hat shop that Ewoldt owns and operates, white duck and blue denim halibut caps ($11 to $21) are hot sellers this summer. For dress up, she has a multicolored velveteen cap at $27.