Must-shop TV

For the fashion obsessed, TV just hasn’t been the same since Carrie Bradshaw was mugged for her Manolo Blahniks. But that hasn’t stopped us from looking for the next “Sex and the City.” Channel surfing for trendsetting TV is leading many viewers to ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” and Fox’s “The O.C.,” both evening soap operas about stylish suburban subcultures.

On Sunday’s episode of “Desperate Housewives,” the minivan moms of Wisteria Lane will walk the runway in a charity fashion show modeling gowns by Bradley Bayou for Halston. That collaboration was scripted, but in the wake of the housewife hype, costume designer Cate Adair is receiving an average of 50 unsolicited samples a week from designers hoping to get their clothes on the show. Retro aprons, gingham dishwashing gloves, Peanuts T-shirts and more have been shipped to the Universal City set from Texas and beyond.

The show’s biggest fashion moment to date came a few weeks ago when Bree (Marcia Cross) tried to seduce her straying spouse clad only in a fur coat, pearls and a red lace La Perla bra and panty set. Bloggers on fan sites went wild, and a spokeswoman from La Perla says the $265 lingerie set has since sold out. The company does a lot of TV and film placement, she says, including the orange bikini Halle Berry wore in the last James Bond flick, but nothing as successful as this.

On the other end of the age spectrum is teen dream “The O.C.” Now in its second season, the show has been buoyed by the personal style of its young stars Mischa Barton, whose relationship with the fashion house Chanel (they dress her for public appearances) translates into costumes for the show, and Adam Brody, whose signature geek chic (sweater vests over polo shirts) has even trickled down to the racks at Target.

A new subscription-based website (theocinsider.com) and a companion magazine launched last month offer fashion and makeup tips written by the show’s staff, among other things. The site also sells clothes that the characters could wear. A bestseller is the “Mrs. Seth Cohen boy-beater” tank top, a riff on celebrity-wife T-shirts that refers to Brody’s character. In the works for spring is a high-end apparel line from the Warner Bros. division responsible for the vintage-inspired Looney Tunes line.

“ ‘The O.C.’ has a lot of impact on our readers,” says Amy Astley, editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. “After Mischa Barton carried a Chanel tote as her school bag, it was considered highly desirable. Of course, not everyone can afford Chanel, but the trend went away from the backpack to the tote anyway. It’s also the impact of the actors themselves, like Adam Brody, with his Mr. Rogers cardigans. When we shot him for the cover of the magazine, we didn’t change the way he was dressed at all.”

Down at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach, where “The O.C.” is filmed, costume designer Karla Stevens is on an eight-day shooting schedule that begins with a shopping spree at Planet Blue in Malibu, Champagne in Redondo Beach, vintage stores Golf Punk and Wasteland in Hollywood, and Barneys New York “for the boys.” She travels with her cheat sheet of actor sizes and her corporate card, though much of the merchandise will be returned within days.

“What’s great about a show like ‘The O.C.’ is that it’s a whole lifestyle we’re selling,” she says. “With a rich community, everyone looks beautiful, drives beautiful cars, lives in beautiful homes and wears beautiful clothes. We have the opportunity, unlike other shows, to go over the top. We can look at what’s coming off the runways and translate it into the characters.”

The operative word may be “selling.” When “Sex and the City” costume designer Pat Field put an enormous flower pin on Sarah Jessica Parker’s lapel, it wasn’t because she was partnering with a jewelry designer. But that kind of scenario could be coming to a TV near you soon.

“Sex and the City” didn’t take advantage of licensed apparel and products until the last couple of seasons. But Lisa Gregorian, senior vice president of TV creative services for Warner Bros. Television, isn’t going to make the same mistake. She’s making “The O.C.” into a brand, with interactive games, soundtracks and high-end apparel.

The “O.C.” collection will be “aspirational,” according to Karine Joret, who works in the Warner Bros. consumer products division. The line of clothing and accessories will be limited to 10 to 15 pieces, which will probably be introduced at a single boutique in L.A. and a single boutique in New York, she said.

Gregorian doesn’t rule out the possibility that the clothing will appear on an episode “if it is organic” to the story.

For now “The O.C.” wardrobe closet is crammed with other labels -- shoes by Stuart Weitzman, Vans and Coach, bags by Dior and Chanel, and Brody’s vintage Levi’s 517s, the only style the actor will wear. Several boxes of Ugg boots languish in the corner. “We’re moving on,” Stevens says. “Keds are going to be the next big trend.” (It should be noted that Barton is a recently signed spokeswoman for the footwear brand.)

This season, Seth’s clothes have been simplified. “He had a few too many Penguin polos,” says Stevens. “Summer went through a whole sweatsuit stage, but we are doing more tweed jackets on her. We’re doing a lot of sparkle and brooches on Mischa, which has become a major trend on the street,”

The outsider from Chino, Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie) lands in the wealthy community by accident. “Ben is concerned from a character standpoint that he stays close to home, and he wants that blue-collar vibe,” Stevens says. “But we like to incorporate Orange County because that’s where he is now. We’ve tried to subtly do that with more color. He’ll wear a vintage shirt with a wife-beater underneath. The wife-beater is his staple, along with his black Caterpillar boots. We were thinking this season of doing a new shoe for him, and I can’t tell you how many we brought in from Prada to Skechers. But we just gave up,” says Stevens, who says she learned from working with Robert De Niro on “Jackie Brown” that actors often build their characters from the shoes up.

Stevens puts together 60 to 100 costumes per episode. She also writes a weekly column for theocinsider.com, which begins, “Hello fans and fashionistas!” A recent missive discussed accessorizing with pearls, round-toe pumps, tweed caps and Coach clutch bags.

“Desperate Housewives” has fashion potential too, says Teen Vogue’s Astley. “I think their hotness may have hit them by surprise. But the leading ladies are attractive, and they are already somewhat identified by their clothes.” The influential L.A. boutique Kitson has decorated its windows in the campy style of Wisteria Lane and will soon sell “Desperate Housewives” T-shirts.

“A number of people have made the reference to ‘Sex and the City,’ ” says Adair, the costume designer. “But I never thought of the show in those terms. It is slightly stylized, but I try to make it real in context of Wisteria Lane. If, along the way, we come up with something that’s a little quirky or a little different, terrific. But that’s not my intent as I put together the clothes for the cast.”

Although Gabrielle’s (Eva Longoria) Juicy Couture tracksuits may scream Southern California, “Desperate Housewives” is set in a fictitious state. “I work hard at making the clothing accessible to anyone in America but not specific to any region.”

Adair’s schedule begins on Sunday afternoon, when she hits Boca, Whispers and the vintage store Gift Garden Antiques, all in Pacific Palisades. She shops brands such as Theory, Catherine Malandrino, Velvet, Maggie Barry and Nanette Lepore with each character in mind.

“I try to think what they would buy if they were out shopping,” says the designer, who works with a team of nine. By the end of the eight-day shooting cycle, she has shopped for, altered and fit 50 to 100 costumes, not counting the ones for extras. “A lot of pieces I re-dye or cut up. It is design because it’s how you mix and match things, and that’s what women do in real life.”

Bree, the consummate perfectionist, always has to match. Gabrielle is more fashion-forward. “There’s a lovely line in an upcoming episode where she complains that her shoe shopping has been curtailed by Carlos’ antics,” Adair says.

Edie’s style is similarly sexy. “Part of the way I differentiate between their characters is by the actresses. They both look great in Frankie B jeans, for example, but Nicollette [Sheridan] is quite tall and has very different body language.” Susan (Teri Hatcher) has a more eclectic, mismatched style, while Lynette (Felicity Huffman) is more plain. (She’s often dressed in a man’s shirt.)

So far, Adair has had total creative freedom. But she realizes that merchandising is becoming a way of life. “I would hate this to become a commercial,” she says, adding that if Disney (which owns ABC) asked her to put a Mickey Mouse T-shirt on the show, she’d probably do it.

“There have been projects I’ve done where they’ve asked me to place things, and I have done it with discretion.” In other instances, she has given the clothing to actresses to wear on their own time. “If it makes it into People magazine, we’ve done our job and haven’t compromised the show.”

Maintaining that integrity could be difficult as consumers grow immune to traditional forms of advertising and television placement becomes a lucrative alternative.

Halston’s Bayou, who is providing five gowns for Sunday’s episode of “Desperate Housewives,” says he has already had calls to his L.A. studio about the dresses, just from the advance press.

For Raquel Krouse, co-owner of the Camp Beverly Hills label, placing a tank top on the season premiere of “The O.C.” translated into a 100% increase in hits on her website and a 30% increase in sales at key stores. “Our product was popular in the 1980s, but these young kids weren’t around in the 1980s, so being part of the show has helped us introduce the line to another generation.”

Despite the media frenzy, including recent fashion features in celebrity weeklies In Touch, Star and Life and Style, neither show has spawned a trend as potent as Carrie Bradshaw’s nameplate necklace or flower pin -- yet.

“The clothes are simply chosen to dress the characters properly from what is available,” says David Wolfe, creative director of New York-based fashion trend consulting firm Doneger Group. Rather than calling them trend-setting, he likened the shows to catalogs, “one step away from the kind of point-and-click thing we are moving toward.”