December 1, 2000

In This Year's Fashion Jungle, Beastly Patterns Are the Sincerest Form of Fakery

If Maurice Sendak wants to know where the wild things are, they're hanging on racks at Saks and Bloomingdale's. Another fashion season finds animal prints once more leaving tracks all over dresses, footwear, and handbags. We asked three scholars to talk about why leopards, zebras, crocodiles, and snakes are still fair game for designers and their prey, the American consumer.

Laurie Fendrich, a painter and an associate professor of fine arts at Hofstra University, and author of Why